CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE 

AND  OTHER 
SUPERSTITIONS 


.M.BUCKLEY 


*    mar;'. 'J  1900     * 


Olviiion... 
Section.., 
No, 


CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

AND   OTHER   SUPERSTITIONS 


CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

AND  OTHER  SUPERSTITIONS 


BEING  SELECTED  CHAPTERS  FROM 
FAITH-HEALING,  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE, 
AND  KINDRED  PHENOMENA" 


/     BY 
J.  M.  BUCKLEY,  LL.D. 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO» 
1899 


Copyright,  1886,  1887,  1888,  1889,  1892,  1899,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


THE  DE  VINNE  PRESS. 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

The  essays  herein  contained  were  printed  in  the  "  Cen- 
tury Magazine  " :  that  on  Faith  Healing  in  June,  1886,  and 
that  on  Christian  Science  in  July  of  the  following  year. 
Afterward  these,  with  several  others  which  treated  Dreams, 
Nightmare,  Somnambulism,  Presentiments,  Visions,  Appa- 
ritions, Astrology,  Divination,  and  Witchcraft,  were  pub- 
lished by  the  Century  Company  in  a  volume  entitled  '*  Faith 
Healing,  Christian  Science,  and  Kindred  Phenomena,"  which 
has  had  a  wide  circulation.  They  excited  much  discussion, 
but  neither  the  authenticity  of  any  fact  nor  the  accuracy  of 
any  quotation  has  been  impeached. 

In  the  intervening  time  the  author  has  given  close  atten- 
tion to  the  moral,  scientific,  and  legal  phases  of  the  subject, 
some  of  the  results  of  which  may  be  found  in  the  Supple- 
mentary Paper  prepared  expressly  for  this  publication. 

Faith  Healing  and  Christian  Science  are  not,  as  many 
seem  to  think,  ''much  the  same  thing."  Faith  Healers  and 
Christian  Scientists  agree  in  rejecting  all  medical  treatment, 
but  in  scarcely  anything  else.  Faith  Healers  acknowledge 
the  existence  of  diseased  conditions  and  also  the  action  of 
remedies;  Christian  Scientists  deny  both,  affirming  that 
the  body,  disease,  the  influence  of  medicine,  and  death  are 
''  delusions  of  mortal  mind."  Faith  Healers  believe  sickness 
to  be  the  "  work  of  the  devil " ;  Christian  Scientists  consider 
that  theory  a  delusion.  Faith  Healers  pray  to  God — whom 
they  beheve  to  be  a  person  who  sent  His  Son  into  the  world 
to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil  —  to  remove  disease,  and 
they  believe  He  will  do  this  if,  renouncing  all  dependence  on 
medicine,  they  exercise  faith  in  Him  alone ;  Christian  Sci- 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

enlists  deny  the  personality  of  God  and  do  not  believe  in 
prayer  in  the  sense  of  asking  God  to  do  anything  whatever. 
Faith  Healers  assert  that  Christian  Science  is  a  baneful 
heresy;  Christian  Scientists  consider  Faith  Healers  ignorant 
of  the  true  meaning  of  Scripture  and  grossly  superstitious. 
The  explanation  of  such  recoveries,  real  and  spurious,  as 
are  experienced  by  the  respective  votaries  of  these  behefs 
is  fully  treated  in  the  article  on  Faith  Healing.  Minor  va- 
riations resulting  from  their  different  methods  of  talking  to 
the  sick  are  accounted  for  in  the  article  on  Christian  Science. 


CONTENTS 

I 
Faith-Healing 

PAGE 

The  Facts  3 

Testimony  to  Particulars 6 

Explanation  of  the  Facts 14 

Inductions 37 

The  Miracles  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles 38 

Claims  of  ''Christian  Faith-Healers,"  Technically 

so  Called,  Effectually  Discredited 41 

The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Answer  to  Prayer 43 

Defense  of  Faith-Healers  Examined 46 

Errors  in  Mental  Physiology 50 

A  "  Missing  Link  " 52 

Evils  of  this  Superstition 55 

Supposed  Difficulties  60 


II 

^'Christl^  Science"  and  '^Mind  Cure" 

Theory 69 

Practice 77 

Specimen  Treatments 83 

Mind  Curers  versus  Faith-Healers,  Mesmerists,  Etc.  87 

Tests  of  the  Theory 89 

Explanation  of  their  Alleged  Success  101 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

III 

SUPPLEIVIENTARY  PaPER 

PAGE 

Recent    Failures  of  Christian  Science  and  Faith 

Healing   119 

Contrast  between  the  Failures  and  Successes  op 
Faith  Healing  and  Christian  Science  and  those 
op  Physicians    120 

Important  Facts  concerning  all  Sicknesses 122 

The  Relation  of  the  Practice  of  Christian  Science 
,   and  Faith  Healing  to  Civil  Law  125 


CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

AND   OTHER   SUPERSTITIONS 


FAITH-HEALING 


IN  1849  I  first  saw  performances  in  "animal  mag- 
netism." A  '^  professor,"  of  fluency,  fine  appear- 
ance, and  marked  self-possession,  lectured  with  il- 
lustrations;  feeble  men  after  being  "magnetized" 
became  strong,  and  persons  ordinarily  reticent  spoke 
eloquently  on  subjects  suggested  by  the  audience. 
Great  excitement  arose,  and  the  attention  of  medical 
men  was  attracted  to  the  curative  powers  of  "mag- 
netism." A  dentist,  who  was  also  a  physician,  ac- 
quired the  art,  and  a  paralytic  when  under  "the 
influence"  moved  an  arm  long  useless.  Persons 
whose  teeth  were  extracted  felt  no  pain  during  the 
operation. 

Some  years  afterward,  at  boarding-school,  a  young 
man  who  was  very  devout  occupied  a  room  with 
me.  A  revival  in  town  extended  to  the  school,  and 
the  young  man  was  brought  from  a  meeting  in  a 
"trance"  and  placed  upon  the  bed.  He  was  uncon- 
scious for  some  hours ;  his  limbs  were  rigid,  and  it 
was  possible  to  lift  him  by  the  head  and  feet  without 
his  body  yielding  in  the  least  degree ;  nor  could  the 
strongest  man  bend  his  arms.  At  length  he  opened 
his  eyes,  uttered  pious  ejaculations,  and  relapsed;  this 
recurred  at  irregular  intervals.  By  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning  he  had  resumed  his  natural  state.    Feeling 


2  FAITH-HEALING 

that  he  had  been  the  subject  of  an  unusual  manifesta- 
tion of  the  favor  of  God,  he  was  very  happy  for  some 
days.  Similar  seizures  occurred  to  him  during  his 
stay  at  the  institution,  whenever  religious  meetings 
were  unusually  fervent. 

In  1856,  while  in  college,  I  first  saw  the  phenomena 
of  spiritualism  as  displayed  by  a  "  trance  medium " 
and  "  inspirational  speaker."  Soon  afterward  I  vis- 
ited the  Perfectionist  community  established  by  John 
H.  Noyes,  where  the  cure  of  disease  without  medicine 
and  the  possibility  of  escaping  death  were  expounded. 

In  1857  I  found  certain  "  Millerites '^  or  '^Adven- 
tists'^  in  the  interior  of  Connecticut  who  claimed  power 
to  heal  by  prayer  and  without  medicine,  and — if  they 
could  attain  sufficient  faith — to  raise  the  dead.  This 
they  attempted  in  the  case  of  a  young  woman  who 
had  died  of  fever,  and  continued  in  prayer  for  her 
until  decomposition  compelled  the  civil  authorities 
to  interfere.  This  case  has  been  paralleled  several 
times  recently.  Trances  were  also  common  among 
the  Millerites  at  their  camp-meetings,  as  they  had 
been  among  the  early  Methodists,  Congregationalists 
in  the  time  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  and  certain  Pres- 
byterians and  Baptists  in  the  early  part  of  this  cen- 
tury in  the  West  and  South. 

In  1859  the  famous  Dr.  Newton  arrived  in  Boston 
on  one  of  his  periodical  visits,  causing  an  extraordi- 
nary sensation.  The  lame  who  visited  him  leaped  for 
joy,  and  left  their  crutches  when  they  departed ;  in 
some  instances  blindness  was  cured ;  several  chronic 
cases  were  reheved,  and  astonishing  results  reported 
confounding  ordinary  practitioners,  and  puzzling  one 
or  two  medical  men  of  national  reputation.  I  made 
Dr.  Newton^s  acquaintance,  and  conversed  vrith  him 
at  length  and  with  entire  freedom.  His  disciples  be- 
came numerous  J  and  "healing  mediums"  and  phy- 


FAITH-HEALING  3 

sicians  who  cure  by  "laying  on  of  hands"  still  exist, 
increasing  rather  than  diminishing  in  number. 

The  circumstance  of  meeting  a  person  who  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  going  into  trances  in  religious 
meetings,  was  an  easy  subject  for  "mesmerizers,"  had 
been  cured  by  a  "  healer,"  and  finally  became  a  spir- 
itualist and  "trance  medium,"  suggested  the  ques- 
tion whether  there  might  not  be  a  natural  suscep- 
tibility acted  upon  by  a  general  law.  Nothing  which 
could  shed  light  upon  this  problem  has  been  know- 
ingly neglected  by  the  writer  during  the  past  thirty 
years. 

Two  root  questions  arise  concerning  the  phenomena; 
they  are  the  inquiries  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of 
all  knowledge :  What  are  the  facts,  and  how  may  they 
be  explained  ? 

THE  FACTS 

The  career  of  Prince  Hohenlohe,  Roman  Catholic 
Bishop  of  Sardica,  is  as  well  authenticated  as  any  fact 
in  history.  Dr.  Tuke,  in  his  thoroughly  scientific  work 
on  the  "Influence  of  the  Mind  upon  the  Body,"  ad- 
mits his  cures  as  facts.  The  Prince,  who  was  born 
in  1794,  in  Waldenburg,  was  of  high  position  and 
broad  education,  having  studied  at  several  universi- 
ties. When  twenty-six  years  of  age,  he  met  a  peas- 
ant who  had  performed  several  astonishing  cures, 
"and  from  him  caught  the  enthusiasm  which  he 
subsequently  manifested  in  healing  the  sick."  I 
quote  two  cases  on  the  authority  of  Professor  Ony- 
mus  of  the  University  of  Wiirtzburg.  "  Captain 
Ruthlein,  an  old  gentleman  of  Thundorf,  70  years 
of  age,  who  had  long  been  pronounced  incurable  of 
paralysis  which  kept  his  hand  clinched,  and  who  had 
not  left  his  room  for  many  years,  was  perfectly  cured. 


4  FAITH-HEALING 

Eight  days  after  his  cure  he  paid  me  a  visit,  rejoicing 
in  the  happiness  of  being  able  to  walk  freely.  ...  A 
student  of  Burglauer,  near  Murmerstadt,  had  lost  for 
two  years  the  use  of  his  legs;  and  though  he  was 
only  partially  relieved  by  the  first  and  second  prayer 
of  the  Prince,  at  the  third  he  found  himself  perfectly 
well.'^ 

Father  Mathew  was  very  successful  in  relieving 
the  sick ;  after  his  death  multitudes  visited  his  tomb, 
and  of  these  many  were  helped  and  left  their  crutches 
there. 

In  all  parts  of  Roman  Catholic  countries,  and  in  the 
Greek  churches  of  Russia,  great  stacks  of  crutches, 
canes,  and  splints  may  be  seen,  which  have  been  left 
by  those  who,  as  Dr.  Tuke  says,  "  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt,  have  been  cured  and  relieved  of  contracted 
joints  by  the  prayers  offered  at  some  shrine,  or  by 
the  supposed  efftcacy  of  their  relics."  Similar  results 
have  been  seen  in  Montreal,  Canada,  within  a  few 
years,  at  solemnities  connected  with  the  deaths  of 
certain  bishops,  one  of  whom  had  performed  many 
cures  through  a  long  career. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  many  cures  occurred  at 
Knock  Chapel  in  Ireland;  and  also  at  Lourdes  in 
France,  whose  fame  ^'is  entirely  associated  with  the 
grotto  of  Massavielle,  where  the  Virgin  Mary  is  be- 
lieved, in  the  Catholic  world,  to  have  revealed  herself 
repeatedly  to  a  peasant  girl  in  1858."  This  place  is 
resorted  to  by  multitudes  of  pilgrims  from  all  parts 
of  the  world,  whose  gifts  have  rendered  possible  the 
building  of  a  large  church  above  the  grotto,  ^'conse- 
crated in  1876  in  the  presence  of  thirty-five  cardinals 
and  other  high  ecclesiastical  dignitaries."  The  gifts 
have  been  made  by  devotees,  many  of  whom  claim  to 
have  been  cured  of  ailments  that  defied  medical  treat- 
ment; besides,  a  large  trade  is  carried  on  in  the  water, 


FAITH-HEALING  5 

which  is  distributed  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  I  stood 
by  the  fountain  for  hours  observing  the  pilgrims 
drinking  and  filling  their  bottles.  A  flask  which  was 
filled  for  me  has  stood  on  my  mantel  for  several 
years,  and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  no  serious  illness 
has  occurred  in  the  family  during  that  time.  Many 
recoveries  follow  its  use. 

Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  doubt  that  Joseph  Gass- 
uer,  a  Catholic  priest  in  Swabia,  effected  many  cures. 

Turning  from  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Greek 
churches  to  Protestantism,  five  or  six  names  are  con- 
spicuous in  connection  with  the  production  of  cures 
without  the  use  of  medicine,  and  in  answer  to  prayer. 

Dorothea  Trudel,  a  woman  living  at  Manheim,  long 
had  an  establishment  there.  Marvelous  tales  have 
been  told  of  the  cures,  some  of  which  have  been 
thoroughly  authenticated. 

Another  name  widely  known  is  that  of  the  late  Rev. 
W.  E.  Boardman,  with  whom  I  was  acquainted  for 
many  years.  He  had  an  establishment  in  the  north 
of  London  which  is  designated  ''  Bethshan,''  and  has 
created  quite  a  sensation.  There  hundreds  of  remark- 
able cures  are  claimed  of  cancer,  paralysis,  advanced 
consumption,  chronic  rheumatism,  and  lameness  j  and 
the  usual  trophies  in  the  shape  of  canes,  crutches,  etc., 
are  left  behind.  They  will  not  allow  the  place  to  be 
called  a  hospital,  but  the  '^  Nursery  of  Faith."  Their 
usual  mode  is  to  anoint  the  sufferer  with  oil  and  then 
pray;  though  considerable  variety  in  method  is  prac- 
tised apparently  to  stimulate  faith.  They  profess  to 
effect  many  cures  by  correspondence,  and  assert  that 
the  healing  virtues  claimed  for  French  and  Irish  rel- 
ics by  Roman  Catholics  are  not  to  be  compared  with 
those  exercised  in  answer  to  their  prayers. 

Dr.  Charles  CuUis,  of  Boston,  recently  deceased, 
was  long  noted  in  connection  with  healing  diseases 


6  FAITH-HEALING 

by  faith  and  prayer,  and  among  his  followers  has 
given  Old  Orchard,  Maine,  a  reputation  as  great  as 
the  grotto  at  Lourdes  has  among  Catholics. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Simpson,  formerly  a  Presbyterian 
minister,  and  now  an  Independent  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  has  also  become  prominent,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  the  improvement  in  health  of  many  of  the 
persons  for  whom  he  has  prayed.  His  devotees  have 
enabled  him  to  open  a  house  here  to  which  various 
persons,  among  them  some  ministers,  resort  when  ill. 

Mrs.  Mix,  a  colored  woman  living  in  the  State  of 
Connecticut,  had  great  famej  having  been  the  in- 
strument of  the  cure  of  persons  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  faith-healing,  attending  conventions, 
writing  books,  etc.  Her  death  was  bewailed  by  many 
respectable  persons,  without  distinction  of  creed,  sex, 
age,  or  color,  who  believed  that  they  had  been  cured 
through  her  prayers. 

One  of  the  elements  of  the  notoriety  of  George  O. 
Barnes,  the  ''Mountain  Evangelist,"  of  Kentucky,  was 
his  oft-announced  power  to  heal. 

Having  admitted  in  general  that  real  cures  of  real 
diseases  are  often  made,  it  is  necessary  to  consider 
more  closely  the  subject  of  testimony. 


TESTIMONY  TO  PARTICULARS 

All  honest  and  rational  persons  are  competent  to 
testify  whether  they  feel  sick,  and  whether  they  seem 
better,  or  believe  themselves  to  have  entirely  recovered 
after  being  prayed  for  and  anointed  by  Boardman, 
Simpson,  or  Cullis;  but  their  testimony  as  to  what 
disease  they  had,  or  whether  they  are  entirely  cured, 
is  a  different  matter,  and  to  have  value  must  be  scru- 
tinized in  every  case  by  competent  judges. 


FAITH-HEALING  7 

In  general,  diseases  are  internal  or  external.  It  is 
clear  that  no  individual  can  know  positively  the  na- 
ture of  any  internal  disease  that  he  has.  The  diag- 
nosis of  the  most  skilful  physicians  may  be  in  error. 
Post-mortems  in  celebrated  cases  have  often  shown 
that  there  had  been  an  entire  misunderstanding  of 
the  malady.  Hysteria  can  simulate  every  known 
complaint:  paralysis,  heart-disease,  and  the  worst 
forms  of  fever  and  ague.  Hypochondria,  to  which 
intelligent  and  highly  educated  persons  of  sedentary 
habits  brooding  over  their  sensations  are  liable,  espe- 
cially if  they  are  accustomed  to  read  medical  works 
and  accounts  of  diseases  and  of  their  treatment,  will  do 
the  same.  Dyspepsia  has  various  forms,  and  indiges- 
tion can  produce  symptoms  of  organic  heart-disease, 
while  diseases  of  the  liver  have  often  been  mistaken 
by  eminent  physicians  for  pulmonary  consumption. 
Especially  in  women  do  the  troubles  to  which  they 
are  most  subject  give  rise  to  hysteria,  in  which  con- 
dition they  may  firmly  believe  that  they  are  afflicted 
with  disease  of  the  spine,  of  the  heart,  or  indeed  of  all 
the  organs.  I  heard  an  intelhgent  woman  "testify'' 
that  she  had  "heart-disease,  irritation  of  the  spinal 
cord,  and  Bright's  disease  of  the  kidneys,  and  had  suf- 
fered from  them  all  for  ten  yearsJ^  She  certainly  had 
some  symptoms  of  all  of  them.  Within  eight  years 
a  "regular"  physician  died,  the  cause,  as  he  sup- 
posed on  the  authority  of  several  examinations,  being 
consumption.  A  post-mortem  showed  his  lungs  sound, 
and  his  death  to  have  been  caused  by  diseases  the  re- 
sult of  the  enormous  quantities  of  food  and  stimu- 
lants he  had  taken  to  "  fight  off  consumption."  The 
object  of  these  observations  is  simply  to  show  that  tes- 
timony that  a  person  has  been  cured  reflects  no  light 
upon  the  problem  as  to  what  he  or  she  was  cured  of, 
if  it  was  claimed  to  be  an  internal  disease.     The 


8  FAITH-HEALING 

solemn  assertion  of  a  responsible  person  that  he  was 
cured  of  heart-disease,  can  prove  only  that  the  symp- 
toms of  what  he  thought  was  heart-disease  have  dis- 
appeared. 

Also,  in  any  state  not  accompanied  with  acute  pain, 
testimony  to  an  immediate  cure  is  of  no  value  unless 
the  disease  be  of  an  external  character  and  actually 
disappears  before  the  eye  of  the  w^itness.  All  other 
cures  must  have  the  test  of  time;  hence  testimony 
given  on  the  spot,  at  the  grave  of  Father  Mathew,  or 
at  Lourdes,  or  at  the  camp-meeting  at  Old  Orchard,  or 
in  the  Tabernacle  of  Mr.  Simpson,  can  prove  merely 
that  then  and  there  the  witness  was  not  conscious  of 
pain  or  weakness,  or  of  the  symptoms  of  the  disease 
which  he  believed  he  had. 

The  foregoing  observations  relate  to  internal  dis- 
eases, but  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  determine  what 
an  external  disease  is.  Tumors  are  often  mistaken 
for  cancers,  and  cancers  are  of  different  species — 
some  incurable  by  any  means  known  to  the  medical 
profession,  others  curable.  It  is  by  these  differences 
that  quack  cancer-doctors  thrive.  When  the  patient 
has  anything  resembling  cancer,  they  promptly  apply 
some  salve,  and  if  the  patient  recovers  he  signs  a 
certificate  saying  that  he  was  cured  of  a  cancer  of  a 
most  terrible  character  which  would  have  been  fatal 
in  three  months  or  six  weeks ;  or  when  the  qiiaclz  him- 
self ivrites  the  certificate  for  the  patient  to  sign,  which 
is  generally  the  case,  the  time  in  which  the  cancer 
would  have  proved  fatal  may  be  reduced  to  a  few 
days.  There  is  also  a  difference  in  tumors :  some  un- 
der no  circumstances  cause  death;  others  are  liable 
to  become  as  fatal  as  a  malignant  pustule. 

In  supposed  injuries  to  the  joints,  the  exact  cause 
of  the  swelling  is  not  always  easily  determined  ;  and 
internal  abscesses  have  sometimes  been  months  in 


FAITH-HEALING  9 

reaching  a  condition  which  would  enable  the  most 
skilful  physicians  and  surgeons  to  locate  them,  or 
decide  positively  their  cause.  The  converse  of  this 
is  true,  that  swellings  have  been  supposed  to  be 
caused  by  abscesses,  incisions  made,  and  a  totally  dif- 
ferent and  comparatively  harmless  condition  found. 
Hence  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  an  external  dis- 
ease is  properly  named.  The  patient  and  his  attend- 
ing physicians  may  be  in  serious  error  as  to  the  exact 
character  of  what  at  a  first  glance  it  might  be  sup- 
posed easy  to  identify. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  power  of  hysteria  to 
simulate  the  symptoms  of  any  internal  disease.  It 
may  be  new  to  some  that  it  can  produce  very  remark- 
able external  developments.  On  the  authority  of  Dr. 
Marvin  R.  Vincent,  of  this  city,  I  give  the  following. 
Says  Dr.  Vincent :  "  I  was  told  of  a  case  at  St.  Luke's 
Hospital  in  this  city:  a  woman  with  a  swelling  which 
was  pronounced  by  the  physicians  to  be  an  ovarian 
tumor,  but  which  disappeared  on  the  administration 
of  ether,  and  was  discovered  to  be  merely  the  result 
of  hysteria." 

Consumption  is  a  subject  of  painful  interest  to 
almost  every  family  in  the  country.  The  peculiarity 
of  this  disease  is  that  it  advances  and  retreats.  In  the 
more  common  form  there  comes  a  time  when  what 
is  commonly  caUed  softening  of  the  tubercles  takes 
place.  The  patient  is  then  very  ill ;  hectic  fever  with 
the  succeeding  chill  occurs  every  day,  and  sometimes 
several  times  a  day ;  night-sweats,  profuse  expectora- 
tion, and  other  evidences  and  causes  of  debility  com- 
plicate the  situation,  and  the  end  is  thought  to  be  not 
far  off.  To  the  surprise  of  the  friends,  in  a  few  days 
he  greatly  improves.  Night-sweats  cease,  the  fever 
greatly  diminishes  or  disappears,  the  cough  lessens ; 
he  rejoices,  perhaps  resumes  his  business  and  re- 


10  FAITH-HEALING 

ceives  congratulations.  Whatever  lie  had  been  tak- 
ing now  has  the  credit, — whether  what  his  physician 
prescribed  or  hypophosphites,  cod-liver  oil,  balsams, 
pectorals, expectorants,  "compound  oxygen/^  benzoic; 
when  the  fact  is  that  the  tubercles  have  softened. 
As  foreign  bodies  they  produced  fever  and  other 
symptoms;  they  have  been  eliminated  by  coughing 
and  other  natural  processes.  Meanwhile  others  are 
forming  which  give  no  uneasiness  except  a  slight 
increase  of  shortness  of  breath.  When  the  second 
softening  period  comes  the  patient  sinks  lower  than 
before ;  new  remedies,  of  course,  are  tried,  radical 
change  of  diet  is  made,  but  if  death  does  not  end 
the  scene  similar  apparent  recovery  takes  place.  At 
either  of  these  stages  a  visit  to  a  grotto,  the  opera- 
tions of  "  faith-healers,"  or  a  magnetic  belt  or  pad, 
might  seem  to  produce  a  great  effect;  but  decline 
would  occur  at  the  periods  of  softening,  and  the 
patient  afterward  improve  or  sink  beyond  the  pos- 
sibility of  recovery,  if  none  of  these  things  had  been 
done. 

A  fact  concerning  consumption  is  known  to  medical 
men  and  stated  in  works  on  hygiene,  but  often  dis- 
believed. That  fact  is  that  pulmonary  consumption, 
genuine  and  unmistakable,  often  terminates  sponta- 
neously in  recovery,  and  frequently  yields  to  hygienic 
methods.  It  is  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  most  cele- 
brated physicians  of  Europe  that  for  every  two  cases 
of  death  from  consumption  there  is  one  case  that 
is  either  indefinitely  prolonged,  the  patient  living  to 
be  old,  or  entirely  recovering  and  dying  of  old  age, 
or  of  some  entirely  different  disease.  It  may  be  asked 
how  such  a  fact  as  this  can  be  established.  By  two 
modes  —  one  probable,  the  other  conclusive.  The 
probable  is  where  the  patient  had  all  the  external 
symptoms   of  the  disease,  and  examination  of  the 


FAITH-HEALING  11 

lungs  by  competent  specialists  gave  results  which 
agreed  with  each  other  and  with  the  external  symp- 
toms, and  the  patient,  by  changing  from  a  sedentary 
to  an  outdoor  and  active  life,  entirely  recovers  and 
lives  for  many  years  without  return  of  the  symp- 
toms. Possibility  of  error  in  the  diagnosis  remains, 
but  where  all  these  conditions  exist  it  is  reduced  to 
a  minimum.  Such  cases  are  numerous.  Conclusive 
demonstration  is  f  onnd  in  post-mortem  examinations. 
The  late  Prof.  Austin  Flint  of  New  York,  author  of 
the  "  Practice  of  Medicine,"  was  also  the  author  of 
a  "Clinical  Report  on  Consumption,"  and  describes 
sixty-two  cases  in  which  an  arrest  of  the  disease  took 
place ;  in  seven  cases  it  occurred  without  any  special 
medical  or  hygienic  treatment,  and  in  four  of  the 
seven  he  declares  that  recovery  was  complete. 

Prof.  J.  Hughes  Bennett,  of  the  Royal  Infirmary  at 
Edinburgh,  in  a  lecture  says :  "  Up  to  a  recent  period 
the  general  opinion  has  been  that  consumption  almost 
always  marches  on  to  a  fatal  termination,  and  that 
the  cases  of  those  known  to  be  restored  were  so  few 
as  to  be  merely  an  exception  to  the  general  rule.  Mor- 
bid anatomy  has  now,  I  think,  demonstrated  that 
tubercles  in  an  early  stage  degenerate  and  become 
abortive  with  extreme  frequency,  in  the  proportion  of 
one  third  to  one  half  of  all  the  incurables  who  die 
over  forty." 

Both  the  Edinburgh  "Journal  of  Medical  Science'^ 
and  the  London  "Lancet"  indorse  this  conclusion.  It 
is  equivalent  to  saying  that  from  one  third  to  one  half 
of  all  the  incurables  of  Scotland  who  die  over  forty 
have  had  incipient  consumption  and  got  well  of  it.  To 
meet  those  who  would  say  that  practically  consump- 
tion does  not  mean  the  existence  of  a  few  isolated 
tubercles,  but  an  advanced  stage  in  which  the  lungs 
are  in  a  state  of  ulceration,  and  the  powers  are  so 


12  FAITH-HEALING 

lowered  that  perfect  recovery  seldom  or  never  takes 
place,  Dr.  BcDnett  proceeds  to  say  that  "Laennec, 
Andral,  Cruveilhier,  Kicgston,  Pressat,  Boudet,  and 
many  others  have  published  cases  where  all  the  func- 
tional symptoms  of  the  disease,  even  in  its  most  ad- 
vanced state,  were  present,  and  yet  the  individual 
lived  many  years  and  ultimately  died  of  some  other 
disorder,  and  on  dissection  cicatrices  and  concretions 
have  been  found  in  the  lungs."  In  that  lecture  Prof. 
Bennett  exhibited  the  lungs  of  a  man  who  died  sud- 
denly of  congestion  of  the  brain,  aged  fifty  years. 
At  twenty-two  he  had  been  given  up  to  die  of  pul- 
monary consumption,  recovered,  lived  nearly  thirty 
years,  and  his  lungs  exhibited  most  indubitable  marks 
of  the  progress  and  termination  of  the  disease.  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  in  such  cases  of  recovery  there  came  a 
time  when  the  last  tubercles  softened;  at  such  a  time, 
any  powerful  mental  stimulus,  or  pleasing  change  in 
circumstances,  or  physical  stimulant  compelling  ex- 
ercise in  the  open  air,  might  be  the  element  which 
would  decide  the  question  whether  the  system  would 
rally  or  the  process  of  innutrition  and  decay  go  on. 

The  heating  of  the  minds  of  witnesses  hy  a  succession 
of  testimonies  must  not  he  forgotten. 

In  one  of  the  meetings  conducted  by  the  Rev.  A.  B. 
Simpson,  I  heard  witnesses  testify  to  the  healing 
power  of  God,  and  one  witness,  who  seemed  to  be  a 
pillar  and  was  specially  called  upon  by  Mr.  Simpson, 
testified,  stating  that  no  one  had  greater  reason  to 
praise  God  than  he,  "for  during  the  past  year  I  have 
several  times  been  miraculously  and  instantaneously 
raised  from  the  jaws  of  deaths 

In  Adelaide,  Australia,  at  a  meeting  held  in  the 
"Workmen's  Hall,  which  was  crowded,  a  Mrs.  Morgan 
testified  that  for  twenty  years  she  had  suffered  from 
heart-disease,  but  the  moment  "Mr.  Wood  laid  his 


FAITH-HEALING  13 

curative  hands  upon  me,  I  felt  a  quiet  within  and  was 
conscious  I  was  cured."  The  Rev.  W.  B.  Shorthouse 
tendered  some  wonderful  testimony;  he  described  his 
own  career  of  weakness  which  interfered  with  his 
ministerial  duties,  but  now  he  was  completely  restored 
to  health.  Only  two  weeks  previous,  he  said,  some 
of  his  congregation  told  him  that  he  looked  like  death. 
As  he  grew  warm  in  his  testimony,  he  described  sev- 
eral marvelous  cases,  one  of  a  man  brought  in  dead  who 
walked  away  without  assistance.  He  had  seen  hun- 
dreds "  touch  the  border  of  Mr.  Wood^s  garment,"  and 
finally  concluded  by  saying  he  was  himself  ^'a  living 
example  of  miracles  greater  than  those  performed  by  the 
disciples  of  Christ J^ 

After  seeing  this  in  ^'GalignanPs  Messenger"  in 
Paris,  I  ascertained  from  high  authority  in  Australia 
that  these  narratives  were  greatly  exaggerated,  and 
that  many  relapses  had  occurred. 

If  such  dangers  exist  in  connection  with  the  testi- 
mony of  witnesses  in  religious  meetings  to  physical 
facts,  it  may  be  thought  that  accounts  of  cases  care- 
fully written  by  honest  men  might  be  taken  without 
so  many  grains  of  allowance.  Having  inquired  into 
several  of  the  most  conspicuous  with  whose  subjects 
I  am  acquainted,  I  have  found  that  the  condition  of 
the  patient  prior  to  the  alleged  cure  has  been  magni- 
fied in  the  description.  This  has  not  always  been  so, 
but  in  most  of  the  celebrated  cases  which  I  have  per- 
sonally investigated. 

Many  important  facts  have  been  omitted,  sometimes 
because  the  witness  did  not  regard  them  as  of  conse- 
quence ;  in  other  cases,  it  must  be  confessed,  because 
the  luster  of  the  cure  would  be  dimmed  by  their  re- 
cital. A  female  evangelist,  whose  astonishing  cure 
has  been  told  to  thousands,  never  mentions  a  surgical 
operation  from  which  her  friends  know  that  she  de- 


14  PAITH-HEALING 

rived  great  benefit;  and  when  asked  why  she  did  not 
tell  of  that,  she  replied,  in  substance,  that  she  did  not 
wish  to  divert  attention  from  the  great  work  that  God 
had  really  wrought  in  her.  Often  the  account  of  the 
cure  has  been  exaggerated:  relapses  have  not  been 
published,  peculiar  sensations  still  felt,  and  resist- 
ed, have  been  omitted  from  the  description,  and  the 
mode  of  the  cure  has  been  restricted  to  one  act  or 
a  single  moment  of  time,  when  in  response  to  ques- 
tions it  appeared  that  it  was  weeks  or  months  before 
the  person  could  properly  be  said  to  be  well.  In  all 
such  cases  it  is  obvious  that  the  written  testimony  is 
of  little  value;  indeed,  it  is  seldom  that  a  published  ac- 
count in  books  supporting  marvels  of  this  kind  shows 
any  signs  of  being  wiitten  by  a  person  who  took  the 
pains,  if  he  possessed  the  capacity,  to  investigate  the 
facts  accurately.  Frequent  quotation  of  such  ac- 
counts adds  nothing  to  their  credibility  or  value. 

But  after  all  deductions  have  been  made,  that  most 
extraordinary  recoveries  have  been  produced,  some  of 
them  instantaneously,  from  disease  in  some  cases  gen- 
erally considered  to  be  incurable  by  ordinary  treat- 
ment, in  others  known  to  be  curable  in  the  ordinary 
process  of  medicine  and  in  surgery  only  by  slow  de- 
grees, must  be  admitted. 

The  object  of  these  remarks  is  not  to  discredit  all 
testimony,  but  to  show  the  conditions  upon  which  its 
value  depends. 


EXPLANATION  OF  THE  FACTS 

Have  these  facts  a  common  cause  ?  To  solve  the 
problem  requires  us  to  ascertain  whether  the  effects 
are  the  same,  and  the  limitations  of  the  cause  or 
causes  are  the  same^    Do  recoveries  under  the  prayers 


FAITH-HEALING  15 

and  anointings  of  Dr.  Cullis  surpass  in  the  nature  of 
disease,  rapidity  of  cure,  and  proportion  of  recoveries 
to  the  whole  number  of  persons  prayed  for,  those  at- 
tested in  connection  with  Mrs.  Mix  or  those  of  the 
Rev.  A.  B.  Simpson?  Is  there  any  reason  to  believe 
that  Dr.  Newton  was  less  successful  in  the  number, 
character,  or  permanence  of  the  cures  attributed  to 
his  touch  and  voice  than  those  of  the  persons  before 
named?  Again,  is  there  any  testimony  that  they 
have  achieved  greater  success  than  "Bethshan"  in 
London?  Further,  can  these  be  proved  to  have 
done  any  more  than  Prince  Hohenlohe,  or  the  priest 
Gassner,  or  the  water  of  Lourdes?  The  subjects  of 
these  cures  will,  of  course,  chant  the  praises  of  the 
respective  schools;  but  does  the  impartial  student  of 
the  testimony  see  any  reason  to  distinguish  between 
them  as  to  the  number  or  character  of  the  effects? 
They  all  sometimes  cure  paralysis,  convulsions,  can- 
cers, tumors,  spinal  diseases,  those  peculiar  to  women, 
and  relieve  or  cure  chronic  cases  frequently,  es- 
pecially rheumatism,  sciatica,  neuralgia,  and  similar 
maladies.  They  succeed  in  some  forms  of  acute  dis- 
ease. ^'  Schools''  in  religion  and  medicine  are  prone 
to  magnify  their  own  achievements  and  depreciate 
those  of  others.  Nor  does  this  always  spring  from 
dishonesty ;  since  faith  often  prevents  that  scrutiny 
which  would  reveal  reasons  for  discounting  testimony 
or  appearances,  while  suspicion  would  lead  to  a  treat- 
ment of  the  reports  of  others  the  opposite  of  that 
accorded  to  their  own.  I  have  seen  subjects  of 
spiritualist  healers,  mesmeric  and  magnetic  healers, 
Roman  Catholic  and  Russo-Greek  miracles,  and  of  the 
most  conspicuous  "faith-healers"  and  "mind-curers^' 
in  this  country,  and  find  no  reason  to  believe  that 
one  has  been  more  or  less  successful  than  others. 
A  very  important  question  is  whether  their  Umita- 


16  FAITH-HEALING 

tions  are  the  same.  The  limitations  must  have  respect 
to  what  and  how  they  heal,  and  the  permanence  of  the 
cure.  It  will  be  noted  that  none  of  them  can  raise 
the  dead,  or  if  any  profess  ability  to  do  so,  or  by 
prayer  to  restore  to  life,  the  rest  will  unite  to  deny 
the  claim  of  the  others,  and  so  fully  support  our  view. 
Nor  can  they  give  sight  to  one  born  blind,  nor  healing 
to  one  born  deaf,  where  the  cause  of  deafness  is  the 
absence  of  any  of  the  organs  necessary  to  hearing. 
Instances  have  been  published  where  children  who 
had  lost  their  hearing  by  scarlet  fever  or  other  dis- 
ease, have  been  made  to  hear  by  the  manipulations  of 
spiritualists  or  by  the  prayers  of  Catholics  or  Pro- 
testants J  but  whether  true  or  not,  no  case  which  can 
be  shown  to  be  one  of  congenital  deafness  or  blind- 
ness can  be  attested  where  sight  or  hearing  has  been 
made  possible  by  any  other  than  surgical  treatment. 
Further,  none  of  them  can  restore  a  limb  that  has 
been  cut  off,  or  an  eye  that  has  been  lost. 

In  mental  derangement  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  all 
have  been  successful  in  some  cases  of  a  functional 
character,  and  in  some  of  protracted  melancholia ;  but 
no  authentic  account  has  been  adduced  of  the  cure  of 
dementia  or  idiocy. 

Another  common  limitation  is  the  existence  of 
many  cases  of  the  same  disease  in  which  cures  are 
effected,  which  they  cannot  relieve  in  the  least.  Piti- 
ful instances  could  be  detailed  of  persons  who  have 
traveled  long  distances,  or  have  believed  in  the  water, 
or  the  power  of  the  dead  body  of  an  ecclesiastic,  or  of 
prayers  at  his  tomb,  or  of  the  mystic  touch  of  New- 
ton, or  of  Dr.  Cullis,  or  of  a  coterie  who  have  made 
their  headquarters  at  a  famous  resort  on  the  coast 
of  the  Atlantic,  and  have  died  bitterly  disappointed. 
Many  have  died  while  firmly  believing  that  God  would 
heal  them,  and  that  they  were  not  about  to  die.  Neither 


FAITH-HEALING  17 

Catholic,  Spiritualist,  nor  Protestant  has  any  preemi- 
nence with  regard  to  this  limitation. 

A  remarkable  attempt  to  Christianize  the  interior 
of  Africa  is  now  proceeding  under  the  auspices  of 
William  Taylor,  a  missionary  bishop.  One  of  the 
company  which  he  took  out  was  an  obstinate  believer 
in  the  power  of  faith  to  draw  from  God  such  help  as 
to  enable  him  to  dispense  with  medicine.  This  young 
man  fanatically  refused  to  take  any  medicine,  and 
died  a  martyr  to  superstition  which  he  mistook  for 
faith.  The  last  entry  in  his  diary  was :  "  I  have  n't 
the  fever,  but  a  weak  feeling ;  but  I  take  the  promise 
'He  giveth  power  to  the  faint,'  and  I  do  receive  the 
fact.''  The  testimony  of  his  medical  adviser  to  his 
last  conversation  is :  "  Charlie,  your  temperature  is 
105,  and  pulse  130;  normal  is  98;  the  dividing  line 
between  life  and  death  is  103.  You  are  now  dying. 
It  is  only  a  question  of  time ;  and  if  you  do  not  take 
something  to  break  up  this  fever,  it  will  surely  kill 
you.''  The  reply  of  the  misguided  youth  was,  "Well, 
then,  I  '11  die ;  for  I  won't  take  any  medicine."  Bishop 
Taylor  himself  does  not  hold  the  view  which,  con- 
sistently carried  out,  practically  caused  the  suicide 
of  this  young  man.  Almost  all  in  the  party  had 
the  African  fever,  and  by  the  aid  of  medical  skill 
recovered. 

The  limitations  common  to  all  are  further  illustrated 
by  the  following  case,  an  account  of  which  I  received 
in  writing  from  the  eminent  physician  who  had  it  in 
charge  until  the  fatal  termination.  A  minister  of  the 
gospel  and  his  wife,  widely  known  both  in  Europe 
and  America,  had  a  daughter-in-law  to  whom  they 
were  greatly  attached.  Her  health  began  to  fail,  and 
all  that  medical  treatment  could  do  was  done  without 
avail.  The  diagnosis  was  one  of  ovarian  tumor,  and 
little  ho]3e  was  offered  either  to  the  invalid  or  to  her 


18  FAITH-HEALING 

friends.  Finally  she  was  made  a  subject  of  prayer 
by  the  minister  and  his  wife,  who  earnestly  besought 
God  to  heal  her.  They  believed  that  they  received 
an  evidence  in  answer  to  their  prayers  that  she 
would  be  cured;  but  being  about  to  make  a  long 
evangelizing  tour  throughout  the  world,  they  prayed 
that  if  she  was  to  get  well,  they  might  receive  a 
certain  sign  which  they  suggested  in  prayer;  and  the 
event  was  in  harmony  with  the  suggestion.  Thor- 
oughly persuaded,  they  made  a  farewell  visit  and 
had  a  season  of  prayer  in  which  both  they  and  she  re- 
ceived ^^  the  assurance  "  that  the  disease  was  checked 
and  that  she  would  finally  recover.  Previous  to  their 
embarking  on  the  voyage,  at  a  meeting  which  was 
attended  by  thousands,  her  case  was  spoken  of  and 
prayers  were  offered  for  her  recovery ;  and  this  hap- 
pened on  several  occasions  during  the  long  tour  fol- 
lowing. But  the  disease  progressed  and  ended  in 
death,  according  to  the  prognosis  given  by  the  phy- 
sician, who  is  himself  a  Christian.  These  facts  show 
the  deceptive  character  of  the  assurances  which  many 
claim  to  receive  on  matters  of  fact  of  this  kind. 

Another  element  of  limitation  has  respect  to  re- 
lapses. In  many  cases  those  who  suppose  that  they 
have  been  cured  relapse  and  die  of  the  malady  of 
which  they  testified  they  had  been  cured.  This  is 
true  of  the  results  of  medical  practice,  and  is  a  conse- 
quence of  the  law  of  human  mortality  and  general 
limitations  of  human  knowledge;  but  it  is  specially 
true  of  quack  medicines  involving  anodynes,  alcohol, 
or  other  stimulants  which  disguise  symptoms,  develop 
latent  energy,  or  divert  attention. 

Lord  Gardenstone,  himself  a  valetudinarian,  spent 
a  great  deal  of  time  "inquiring  for  those  persons  who 
had  actually  attested  marvelous  cures,  and  found  that 
more  than  two  thirds  of  the  number  died  very  shortly 


FAITH-HEALING  19 

after  they  had  been  cured."  That  the  proportion  of 
relapses  among  persons  who  have  attested  cures  under 
the  Spiritualists,  Magnetizers,  Roman  Catholics,  and 
Protestants  is  as  great  as  this,  I  do  not  affirm ;  but  I 
have  no  doubt  that  it  is  greater  than  among  those 
who  have  supposed  themselves  to  be  cured  either 
by  hygienic  means  without  medicine,  or  under  the 
best  attainable  medical  treatment,  which  always  at- 
tends to  hygiene  in  proportion  to  the  intellectual  and 
moral  elevation  of  the  physician  above  the  sphere  of 
quackery. 

Some  years  since  a  member  of  the  Christian 
church  in  the  city  of  Boston  solemnly  testified  that 
he  had  been  entirely  cured  of  pulmonary  consump- 
tion through  the  anointing  and  prayer  of  Dr.  Cullis. 
In  less  than  six  months  afterward  he  died  of  con- 
sumption. "Zion's  Herald,"  a  paper  published  in  the 
same  city,  in  an  editorial  upon  the  results  of  a  faith- 
healing  convention  at  Old  Orchard,  says:  '^We  are 
not  surprised  to  learn  that  some  who  esteemed  them- 
selves healed  are  suffering  again  from  their  old  in- 
firmities, in  some  instances  more  severely  than  before." 
Such  relapses  are  exceedingly  numerous,  but  they 
are  not  published ;  the  jubilant  testimonies  are  tele- 
graphed throughout  the  land  and  dilated  upon  in 
books;  the  subsequent  relapses  are  not  spoken  of 
in  religious  meetings  nor  published  anywhere,  but  a 
little  pains  enabled  me  in  a  single  year  to  collect  a 
large  number. 

If  we  are  not  able  to  conclude  a  common  cause 
from  these  concurrences  in  effects,  limitations,  and 
relapses,  neither  the  deductive  nor  the  inductive  pro- 
cess is  of  value,  and  all  modes  of  acquiring  knowledge 
or  tracing  causes  would  seem  to  be  useless. 

But  what  is  that  common  cause"?  Can  these  effects 
be  proved  to  be  natural  by  constructing  a  formula  by 


20  FAITH-HEALING 

wliicli  tliey  can  be  produced  !  If  there  be  phenomena 
in  which  the  results  cannot  be  traced  to  their  sources, 
can  they  be  shown  to  be  similar  to  other  effects  whose 
causes  can  be  thus  traced  ? 

In  investigating  phenomena,  some  of  which  it  is 
claimed  are  connected  with  religion  and  others  with 
occult  forces,  it)  is  necessary  to  proceed  ivWwut  regard 
to  the  question  of  religioUj  in  determining  whether  the 
facts  can  be  accounted  for  upon  natural  principles, 
and  paralleled  by  the  application  thereof. 

In  searching  for  analogies  I  avail  myseK  of  au- 
thentic cases  found  in  John  Hunter,  in  Dr.  Tuke's 
work  previously  referred  to,  in  the  ^^  Mental  Physi- 
ology" of  Dr.  Carpenter,  and  in  the  psychological 
researches  of  Sir  Benjamin  Brodie  and  Sir  Henry 
Holland  5  selecting,  however,  only  such  facts  as  have 
been  paralleled  under  rpy  own  observation. 

First.  Cases  where  the  effect  is  unquestionably 
produced  by  a  natural  mental  cause. 

(a)  The  charming  away  of  warts  is  weU  established. 
Dr.  Tuke  says  of  them:  '^They  are  so  apparent  that 
there  cannot  be  much  room  for  mistake  as  to  whether 
they  have  or  have  not  disappeared,  and  in  some  in- 
stances within  my  own  knowledge  their  disappear- 
ance was  in  such  close  connection  with  the  psychical 
treatment  adopted,  that  I  could  hardly  suppose  the 
cure  was  only  post  hoc.  In  one  case,  a  relative  of  mine 
had  a  troublesome  wart  on  the  hand,  for  which  I  made 
use  of  the  usual  local  remedies,  but  without  effect. 
After  they  were  discontinued,  it  remained  in  statu  quo 
for  some  time,  when  a  gentleman  ^charmed'  it  away 
in  a  few  days."  He  then  tells  of  a  case  the  particu- 
lars of  which  he  received  of  a  surgeon.  His  daughter 
had  about  a  dozen  warts  on  her  hands,  and  they  had 
been  there  eighteen  months ;  her  father  had  applied 
caustic  and  other  remedies  without  success.     A  gen- 


FAITH-HEALING  21 

tlemen  called,  noticed  her  warts,  and  asked  how  many 
she  had.  She  said  she  did  not  know,  but  thought 
about  a  dozen.  "  Count  them,  will  you "? "  said  he, 
and  solemnly  took  down  her  counting,  remarking, 
^^  You  will  not  be  troubled  with  your  warts  after  next 
Sunday.'^  Dr.  Tuke  adds,  ^'  It  is  a  fact  that  by  the 
day  named  the  warts  had  disappeared  and  did  not 
return."  Francis  Bacon  had  a  similar  experience,  in- 
cluding the  removal  of  a  wart  which  had  been  with 
him  from  childhood,  on  which  he  says :  ^^  At  the  rest 
I  did  little  marvel,  because  they  came  in  a  short  time, 
and  might  go  away  in  a  short  time  again ;  but  the 
going  away  of  that  which  had  stayed  so  long  doth 
yet  stick  with  me.'' 

(h)  Blood-diseases,  such  as  scurvy,  have  been  cured 
in  the  same  way.  At  the  siege  of  Breda  in  1625, 
scurvy  prevailed  to  such  an  extent  that  the  Prince  of 
Orange  was  about  to  capitulate.  The  following  ex- 
periment was  resorted  to ;  ^'  Three  small  phials  of 
medicine  were  given  to  each  physician,  not  enough 
for  recovery  of  two  patients.  It  was  publicly  given 
out  that  three  or  four  drops  were  sufiScient  to  impart 
a  healing  virtue  to  a  gallon  of  liquor.''  Dr,  Frederic 
Van  der  Mye,  who  was  present  and  one  of  the  physi- 
cians, says:  '^The  effect  of  the  delusion  was  really  as- 
tonishing; for  many  quickly  and  perfectly  recovered. 
Such  as  had  not  moved  their  limbs  for  a  month  before 
were  seen  walking  the  streets,  sound,  upright,  and  in 
perfect  health."  Dr.  Van  der  Mye  says  that  before 
this  happy  experiment  was  tried  they  were  in  a  con- 
dition of  absolute  despair,  and  the  scurvy  and  the 
despair  had  produced  '' fluxes,  dropsies,  and  every 
species  of  distress,  attended  with  a  great  mortality." 

(c)  Van  Swieten  and  Smollett  speak  of  consump- 
tive patients  recovering  health  from  falling  into  cold 
water.     Dr.  Tuke  says  that  Dr.  Rush  refers  to  these 


22  FAITH-HEALING 

cases,  and  "inclines  to  think  tliat  fright  and  the  con- 
sequent exertion  produced  a  beneficial  result." 

(d)  Abernethy  gives  a  case  of  a  woman  who  was 
permanently  cured  of  dropsy  by  being  frightened  by 
a  bull,  relief  coming  through  the  kidneys. 

(e)  Of  the  famous  metallic  tractors  of  Dr.  Perkins, 
which  produced  most  extraordinary  results,  attracting 
the  attention  of  the  medical  world,  the  effects  of  the 
use  of  the  tractors  being  attributed  to  galvanism,  and 
of  the  production  of  the  same  effects  by  two  wooden 
tractors  of  nearly  the  same  shape,  and  painted  so  as 
to  resemble  them  in  color,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to 
say  anything.  But  wooden  and  metallic  were  equally 
efficient,  and  cured  cases  of  chronic  rheumatism  in 
the  ankle,  knee,  wrist,  and  hip,  where  the  joints  were 
swollen  and  the  patient  had  been  ill  for  a  long  time ; 
and  even  a  case  of  lockjaw  of  three  or  four  days' 
standing  was  cured  in  fifty  minutes,  when  the  phy- 
sicians had  lost  all  hope. 

(/)  I  have  frequently  tested  this  principle.  The 
application  of  a  silver  dollar  wrapped  in  silk  to  ulcer- 
ated teeth,  where  the  patient  had  been  suffering  for 
many  hours,  and  in  some  instances  for  days,  relieved 
the  pain,  the  patient  supposing  that  it  was  an  infalli- 
ble remedy.  After  I  had  explained  that  the  effect 
was  wholly  mental,  the  magic  power  of  the  remedy 
was  gone. 

(g)  In  1867  a  well-known  public  singer  was  taken 
dangerously  ill  on  the  evening  of  his  concert,  having 
great  nausea  and  intense  headache ;  two  applications 
of  the  silver  dollar  to  his  forehead  entirely  relieved 
him,  and  he  performed  a  full  program  with  his  usual 
energy.  Anything  else  would  have  been  as  effectual 
as  the  dollar,  which  was  used  merely  because  it  was 
at  hand. 

{h)    The   following    case   is   taken  from  a  pam- 


FAITH-HEALING  23 

plilet  published  by  me  in  1875,  entitled  "Supposed 
]Mir3;cles.'^ 

In  company  with  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Faulks  I  called  at 
a  place  near  Euglewood,  N.  J.,  to  procure  a  boat. 
There  was  a  delay  of  half  an  hour,  and  the  day  being 
chilly,  we  repaired  to  a  house  near  by  and  there  saw 
a  most  pitiable  spectacle.     The  mother  of  the  family 
was  suffering  from  inflammatory  rheumatism  in  its 
worst  form.     She  was   terribly   swollen,  could  not 
move,  nor  bear  to  be  touched.     I  said  to  Mr.  Faulks, 
"You  shall  now  have  an  illustration  of  the  truth  of 
the  theory  you  have  so  often  heard  me  advance." 
He  mildly  demurred,  and  intimated  that  he  did  not 
wish  to  be  mixed  up  in  anything  of  the  kind.     But, 
after  making  various  remarks  solely  to  inspire  con- 
fidence and  expectation,  I  called  for  a  pair  of  knit- 
ting-needles.  After  some  delay,  improved  to  increase 
confidence  and  surround  the  proceedings  with  mys- 
tery, operations  were  begun.     One  of  the  hands  of 
the  patient  was  so  swollen  that  the  fingers  were  very 
nearly  as  large  as  the  wrist  of  an  ordinary  child 
three  years  of  age.      In  fact,  ahnost  aU  the  space 
naturally  between  the  fingers  was  occupied,  and  the 
fist  was  clinched.      It  was  plain  that  to  open  them 
voluntarily  was  impossible,  and  to  move  them  m- 
tensely  painful.     The  daughter  informed  us  that  the 
hand  had  not  been  opened  for  several  weeks.     When 
aU  was  ready  I  held  the  needle  about  two  inches 
from  the  end  of   the  woman's  fingers,   just  above 
the  clinched  hand,  and  said,  "Now,  Madam,  do  not 
think  of  your  fingers,  and  above  all  do  not  try  to 
move  them,  but  fix  your  eyes  on  the  ends  of  these 
needles.''     She  did  so,  and  to  her  own  wonder  and 
that  of  her  daughter  the  fingers  straightened  out  and 
became  flexible  without  the  least  pain.   I  then  moved 
the  needles  about,  over  the  hand,  and  she  declared 


24  FAITH-HEALING 

that  all  pain  left  her  hand  except  in  one  spot  about 
half  an  inch  in  diameter. 

{i)  The  efficacy  of  the  touch  of  the  king  to  cure 
scrofula  is  authenticated  beyond  question.     Charles 

II.  touched  nearly  100,000  persons;  James  in  one  of 
his  journeys  touched  800  persons  in  Chester  Cathe- 
dral.    Macaulay's  History  shows  how,  when  William 

III.  refused  to  exercise  this  power,  it  brought  upon 
him  ^'an  avalanche  of  the  tears  and  cries  of  parents 
of  the  children  who  were  suffering  from  scrofula. 
Bigots  lifted  up  their  hands  and  eyes  in  horror  at  his 
impiety .''  His  opponents  insinuated  that  he  dared 
not  try  a  power  which  belonged  only  to  legitimate 
sovereigns  J  but  this  sarcasm  was  without  basis,  as  an 
old  author  says:  "The  curing  of  the  king-'s  evil  by  the 
touch  of  the  king  does  much  puzzle  our  philosophers, 
for  whether  our  Mngs  were  of  the  house  of  YorJc  or  Lan- 
caster, it  did  cure  for  the  most  part."  This  reminds 
the  student  of  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  consterna- 
tion of  the  Jesuits  when  the  extraordinary  "miracle'' 
was  wrought  upon  the  niece  of  the  famous  Blaise 
Pascal. 

(j)  The  daughter  of  an  eminent  clergyman  in  this 
city  had  been  sick  for  a  long  time,  entirely  unable  to 
move  and  suffering  intense  pain.  One  of  the  most 
famous  surgeons  of  New  York  declared,  after  careful 
examination,  that  she  had  diseases  of  the  breast-bone 
and  ribs  which  would  require  incisions  of  so  severe 
a  character  as  to  be  horrible  to  contemplate.  Three 
times  the  surgeon  came  with  his  instruments  to  per- 
form the  operation,  but  the  parents  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  consent  to  it,  and  it  was  postponed. 
At  last  the  late  Dr.  Krackowitzer  was  called  in ;  lie 
solemnly  and  very  thoroughly  examiued  her  from 
head  to  foot,  taking  a  long  time,  and  at  last  suddenly 
exclaimed,  "  Get  out  of  bed,  put  on  your  clothes,  and 


FAITH-HEALING  25 

go  down-stairs  to  meet  your  mother  in  the  parlor ! " 
The  young  lady  automatically  arose  and  obeyed  him. 
The  next  day  she  took  a  walk  with  her  mother,  and 
soon  entirely  recovered.  Dr.  Krackowitzer  stated 
that  he  recognized  in  her  an  obstinate  case  of  hyste- 
ria, which  needed  the  stimulus  of  sudden  command 
from  a  stronger  will  than  her  own.  I  received  this 
narrative  from  the  young  lady's  father,-  she  has 
never  had  a  relapse,  and  is  still  living  in  excellent 
health.  Had  she  been  cured  by  a  faith-healer  believed 
in  by  the  family,  the  mistaken  diagnosis  of  the  emi- 
nent surgeon  would  have  been  heralded  far  and  wide, 
and  the  cure  considered  a  miracle. 

(h)  The  cure  of  obstinate  constipation  when  all 
medicine  had  lost  its  effect,  by  a  medical  man  who 
required  the  patient  to  uncover  the  abdomen  and 
direct  his  thoughts  entirely  to  the  sensations  experi- 
enced in  that  region,  is  vouched  for  by  Dr.  Carpenter. 

(/)  The  cure  of  a  case  of  paralysis  by  Sir  Hum- 
phrey Da\^  is  a  scientific  fact  of  the  first  importance. 
He  placed  a  thermometer  under  the  tongue  of  the 
patient  simply  to  ascertain  the  temperature ;  the  pa- 
tient at  once  claimed  to  experience  relief,  so  the  same 
treatment  was  continued  for  two  weeks,  and  by  that 
time  the  patient  was  well.  In  this  case  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  patient  was  not  assisted  by  an  application 
to  the  affected  part. 

In  all  the  foregoing  cases  the  cure  or  relief  was  a 
natural  result  of  mental  or  emotional  states.  As  long 
ago  as  the  time  of  John  Hunter,  it  was  established 
by  a  variety  of  experiments  and  by  his  own  experi- 
ence that  the  concentration  of  attention  upon  any 
part  of  the  human  system  affects  first  the  sensations, 
next  produces  a  change  in  the  circulation,  then  a 
modification  of  the  nutrition,  and  finally  an  altera- 
tion in  structure. 


26  FAITH-HEALING 

Second.  Cases  in  which  the  operation  of  occult 
causes  is  claimed.  These  will  be  treated  here  only  so 
far  as  they  reflect  light  upon  ^^  faith-cures J^ 

(a)  That  trances  and  healings  occurred  under  the 
performances  of  Mesmer  is  as  well  established  as  any 
fact  depending  upon  testimony.  French  scientists 
who  investigated  the  subject  divided  into  two  hostile 
parties  upon  the  explanation,  and  in  some  cases  as  to 
whether  they  were  genuine  or  fraudulent ;  but  they 
agreed  as  to  the  genuineness  of  many  of  the  cures. 
The  Government  established  a  commission  of  physi- 
cians and  members  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  to 
investigate  the  phenomena.  Benjamin  Franklin,  who 
was  at  that  time  in  Paris  in  the  interest  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  distinguished  J.  S.  Bailly  were  of  that 
commission,  with  Lavoisier,  Darcet,  and  others.  They 
presented  an  elaborate  report,  specifically  admitting 
many  of  the  alleged  facts,  but  denying  the  necessity 
of  assuming  "  animal  magnetism."  Forty  years  after- 
ward,— namely,  on  October  11,1825, — the  Royal  Acad- 
emy of  Medicine  in  Paris  was  addressed  by  a  noted 
physician,  Foissac,  who  called  its  attention  to  the  im- 
portance of  a  new  inquiry.  After  a  long  debate  the 
Academy  appointed  a  committee  to  inquire  whether  it 
would  or  would  not  become  the  Academy  to  investi- 
gate "  animal  magnetism."  The  report  was  favorable, 
and  was  debated  at  great  length;  it  was  finally  de- 
cided to  investigate,  and  the  Academy,  by  a  majority 
of  ten  in  a  total  vote  of  sixty,  appointed  a  permanent 
committee  on  the  subject.  This  committee  reaffirmed 
the  facts,  and  did  not  divide  as  in  the  former  in- 
stance, two  merely  declining  to  sign  the  report  be- 
cause not  present  at  the  experiments.  The  subject 
was  reopened  in  1837,  and  further  reports  and  dis- 
cussions of  great  importance  resulted.  These  are 
referred  to  here  simply  to  show  the  amount  of  testi- 


FAITH-HEALING  27 

mony  to  certain  facts  of  trance  conditions,  so  called, 
and  cures. 

The  following  is  given  on  the  authority  of  Dr. 
Tuke,  who  says,  "  It  is  afforded  by  a  highly  respecta- 
ble surgeon  and  attributed  by  him  to  mesmerism." 
It  is  the  case  of  Edward  Wine,  aged  seventy -five,  who 
had  been  paralyzed  two  years  in  one  arm  and  leg. 
The  left  arm  was  spasmodically  fixed  to  the  chest,  the 
fingers  drawn  toward  the  palm  of  the  hand  and 
wasted,  quite  incapable  of  holding  anything  ;  walked 
with  a  crutch,  drawing  the  left  leg  after  him.  After 
several  mesmerizing  operations  the  surgeon  put  "a 
nosegay  in  his  coat  and  posted  him  off  to  church,  and 
he  tells  me  he  walked  like  a  gentleman  down  the  aisle, 
carrying  his  stick  in  his  lame  arm." 

The  noted  Mr.  Braid  in  many  authentic  instances 
restored  lost  sight,  greatly  improved  the  condition  of 
the  paralyzed,  in  some  instances  entirely  curing  the 
patient,  and  had  very  little  difficulty  with  most  cases 
of  rheumatism.  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter  investigated 
many  of  these  cases. 

But  what  is  mesmerism,  magnetism,  electro-biology, 
etc.  1  It  is  a  subjective  condition.  The  notion  that 
a  magnetic  fluid  passes  from  the  body,  or  that  passes 
are  of  utility  in  producing  the  state  except  as  they 
act  upon  the  mind  of  the  candidate,  was  exploded  long 
since ;  and  both  in  Europe  and  America  the  discovery 
of  the  real  principle  was  accidental  and  made  by  a 
number  of  persons.  About  fifty  years  ago  an  itin- 
erant lecturer  on  these  phenomena,  who  had  great 
success  in  experiments,  used  an  old-fashioned  cylinder 
electrical  machine.  The  '^  subjects"  took  hold  of  the 
wire.  He  gave  them  a  slight  electrical  shock,  and 
'^  concentrated  his  will  upon  them."  Those  that  were 
susceptible  passed  into  the  trance  state.  On  a  certain 
occasion,  when  trying  the   experiment  with   several 


28  FAITH-HEALING 

gentlemen  in  a  private  room,  the  operator  was  called 
out  just  as  the  candidates  had  taken  hold  of  the  wire. 
He  remained  twenty  minutes,  not  supposing  that  the 
experiment  was  being  tried;  on  his  return,  to  his 
great  surprise,  he  found  three  of  them  as  much  "mag- 
netized," "  mesmerized,"  electro-biologized,"  "  hypno- 
tized," or '^psycodunamized"  as  any  he  had  ever  seen. 
This  showed  that  the  entire  effect  was  caused  by  their 
own  mental  states.  Further  experiments  made  it 
clear  that  neither  the  will  of  the  operator,  nor  any 
"  magnetism  "  from  his  body,  nor  electricity,  nor  the 
influence  of  the  candidates  upon  each  other  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  result.  Mesmer  himself  used 
magnets  until  he  fell  in  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
priest  Gassner,  before  mentioned,  when,  perceiving 
that  he  used  none,  he  renounced  magnets,  afterward 
depending  solely  on  manipulation. 

Twenty-three  years  ago  I  was  present  at  a  private 
meeting  of  twenty-five  ladies  and  gentlemen,  at  the 
residence  of  Mr.  Henry  R.  Towne,  president  of  the 
Yale  and  Towne  Manufacturing  Company.  On  two 
successive  evenings  these  phenomena  had  been  ex- 
plained. It  had  been  maintained  that  all  the  results 
were  subjective,  arising  from  the  concentrated  atten- 
tion, expectancy,  and  reverence  of  the  persons  try- 
ing the  experiment.  At  the  close  of  the  two  lectures, 
after  divesting  the  subject  of  mystery,  and,  appa- 
rently, rendering  it  impossible  to  produce  reverence 
or  confidence,  I  was  urged  to  test  tlie  theory  by  ex- 
periment. Accordingly  eight  gentlemen  and  ladies 
were  requested  to  rise,  stand  without  personal  con- 
tact with  one  another  or  myself,  close  their  eyes,  and 
clasp  their  hands.  In  a  few  minutes  five  passed  more 
or  less  fully  into  the  trance  state,  two  becoming  un- 
conscious of  their  surroundings  and  the  others  exhib- 
iting peculiar  phenomena.    One  thus  affected  was  a 


FAITH-HEALING  29 

prominent  lawyer  of  tlie  city  of  New  York,  another 
a  recent  graduate  of  the  Shefiaeld  Scientific  School, 
and  the  third  the  bookkeeper  in  a  large  establish- 
ment. Nothing  was  done  by  the  experimenter  during 
the  interval  after  these  persons  closed  theu-  eyes  and 
clasped  their  hands,  save  to  wait  in  silence  and  re- 
quire silence  from  spectators.  Among  those  who  wit- 
nessed and  critically  studied  these  phenomena  with 
the  writer  were  Professor  Fuertes,  Dean  of  the  De- 
partment of  Civil  Engineering  in  Cornell  University, 
whose  letter,  herewith  printed,^  explains  itself ;  Mr. 
Henry  R.  Towne,  before  mentioned;   the  Rev.  Dr. 

1  Dr.  J.  M.  Buckley.  Dear  Sir  :  My  recollection  of  tho 
"stance"  rpferrod  to  in  your  letter  of  the  25th  ult.  is  not  as 
distinct  in  some  points  as  in  others  you  do  not  mention.  The 
study  of  psychology  is  so  important  that  it  is  necessary  to  be 
exact  beyond  measure  in  order  not  to  mislead.  An  immense 
amount  of  rubbish  has  been  piled  upon  slender  foundations  in 
the  study  of  psycho-genesis,  and  no  progress  can  be  made  so 
long  as  people  assent  easily  to  become  witnesses  with  exter- 
nal aid  to  recollect  facts  which  happened  long  ago.  I  am  very 
positive  as  to  the  truth  of  the  following  facts  :  I  belonged  to  a 
literary  club,  composed  of  the  most  cultivated  people  residing 
in  Stamford  in  1864-71.  At  one  of  oui-  meetings,  I  was  present 
when  you  performed  some  experiments  upon  ten  or  fifteen  of  its 
members  by  asking  them  to  stand  in  a  circle,  with  closed  eyes, 
and  holding  their  hands  before  their  faces  as  in  the  conven- 
tional attitude  for  praying ;  the  gas  was  partly  turned  down. 
Some  of  the  members  of  this  group  laughed,  and  you  perempto- 
rily excluded  them  from  the  circle,  as  previously  agreed  upon.  A 
short  time  afterward  one  of  my  neighbors  began  to  breathe  hard, 
and  he  was  followed  by  several  others,  who  gave  indications, 
plainly  visible,  that  something  unusual  was  happening  to  them. 

If  human  testimony  is  to  be  depended  upon  at  all,  I  am  sure 
that  the  social  position  of  the  persons  so  affected,  their  high 
culture,  refinement,  and  surroundings,  entitled  their  actions  to 
be  believed,  as  representing  truthfully  the  conditions  causing 
their  strange  behavior,  even  if  the  following  circumstances  did 
not  reinforce  the  necessity  of  believing  their  candid  sincerity  in 
this  question.    One  of  tho  first  "subjects"  was  a  young  lady, 


30  FAITH-HEALING 

A.  S.  Twombly,  pastor  of  the  Winthrop  Congrega- 
tional Church  of  Charlestown,  Mass. ;  and  J.  B.  Wil- 
liams, Esquire,  of  the  city  of  New  York. 

On  the  14th  of  April,  1868,  in  the  City  Hall  of  Dover, 
New  Hampshire,  in  the  presence  of  a  thousand  per- 
sons, the  same  principles  were  set  forth.  At  the  close 
Dr.  L.  G.  Hill,  of  that  city,  long  President  of  the  State 
Medical  Society,  called  for  the  proof  of  the  theory 
that  the  effects  attributed  to  animal  magnetism  were 
the  result  of  subjective  mental  condition.  The  result, 
as  described  in  the  "  Dover  Gazette  ^'  of  Friday,  April 
17,  1868,  by  the  editor,  who  refers  to  himself  in  the 
account,  is  as  follows :  "  Ten  or  twelve  gentlemen  at 
his  [the  lecturer's]  request  took  the  platform  and  were 
requested  to  shut  their  eyes,  close  their  hands,  and 
remain  quiet.  They  did  so.  One  complete  trance 
medium  and  two  partial  ones  at  once  developed. 

who  was  made  to  "believe  that  she  was  writing  a  letter  to  a 
friend,  and  immediately  began  to  simulate  the  act  of  writing ; 
but  other  subjects  proving  to  be  most  amusingly  affected,  she 
was,  unfortunately,  forgotten,  and  allowed  to  go  on  ''writing" 
for  nearly  three  hours  consecutively,  earnestly  engaged  at  her 
task,  obli\ious  of  her  surroundings,  neither  laughing,  nor  ap- 
parently caring  for  what  was  going  on.  The  effect  of  holding 
her  hand  in  mid-air  for  so  long  a  time,  and  moving  her  fingers 
all  the  time,  is  a  feat  of  endurance  of  which  she  was  not  physi- 
cally able,  if  conscious.  Her  arm  and  shoulder  were  swollen 
and  lame  for  several  days  after  this  performance.  [Owing  to  the 
crowded  condition  of  the  room,  I  did  not  observe  this  till  the  inter- 
view terminated.  Author.]  Another  subject  was  a  young  lady 
who  had  recently  lost  a  friend.  The  mother  of  her  dead  friend 
had  also  recently  arrived  from  Europe  and  was  present  in  the 
room;  and  after  the  young  lady  affected  had  expressed  her 
ability  to  go  to  heaven  and  described  what  she  saw  there,  she 
paused  a  moment,  as  if  surprised  and  filled  with  terror;  then, 
uttering  a  piercing  scream,  moved  forward  as  if  to  Embrace  the 
dead  friend,  whose  name  she  mentioned,  in  a  manner  so  tragic 
and  out  of  keeping  with  her  usual  lovely  and  bashful  demeanor 
that  the  impression  produced  on  the  company  was  quite  pro- 


FAITH-HEALING  &1 

Three  of  the  other  gentlemen,  among  whom  was  the 
writer  of  this  article,  felt  the  trance  force  in  a  slight 
degree.  The  completely  developed  medium  was  in  the 
most  perfect  trance ;  conld  be  convinced  of  anything 
at  once ;  was  clairvoyant,  ecstatic,  mesmeric,  somnam- 
bulic, and  in  fact  took  any  form  of  ideomania  at  will. 
We  have  been  at  perhaps  over  a  hundred  seances  of 
mesmeric,  biologic,  and  so-called  spiritual  subjects  or 
mediums,  but  have  never  seen  so  perfect  a  subject  so 
soon  developed  and  upon  so  pure  a  principle."  These 
cases  are  adduced  to  show  the  effect  of  the  mind  upon 
the  body,  and  of  the  mind  upon  its  own  faculties. 
The  young  man  particularly  mentioned  by  the  "  Ga- 
zette "  could  have  had  every  tooth  extracted,  or  even 
a  limb  amputated,  without  consciousness.  After  he 
had  resumed  his  normal  state,  such  was  his  suscepti- 
bility that  a  word  would  have  sent  him  back  to  sleep. 

found.  This  behavior,  both  brutal  and  coarse,  and  cruel  to  the 
mother  of  the  dead  young  girl,  is,  I  am  very  sure,  incompatible 

with  any  theory  of  Miss being  in  her  usual  senses.     In  fact 

she  was  made  ill  by  this  circumstance,  and  conceived  the  great- 
est aversion  toward  you.  Her  friend  had  been  buried  but  a  few 
days.  [These  facts  were  unknown  to  me,  and  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble her  attention  was  diverted  from  them.  As  the  whole  was 
imaginary,  this  was  easily  done.    Author.] 

One  of  the  most  amusing  incidents  was  the  honest  conviction 
with  which  a  prominent  lawyer  believed  himself  sitting  on  a 
log  looking  into  the  muddy  bottom  of  a  stream  of  water.  An- 
other, that  of  a  young  man  whose  trembling  legs  were  made  to 
bend  under  the  enormous  weight  of  an  envelope  placed  over  his 
head,  when  told  it  weighed  a  ton.  The  above  are  a  few  of  the 
things  I  saw  about  which  I  am  positive  my  memory  of  the 
events  is  perfect.  Also,  that  you  stated  that  you  would  not  and 
did  not  exercise  any  act  of  volition  or  influence  upon  your 
"subjects,"  but  merely  waited  for  them  to  fall  into  the  hypnotic 
state  giving  rise  to  the  phenomena  described. 

Believe  me,  sincerely, 

E.  A.  Fuertes. 

Ithaca,  New  York,  January  30,  1886. 


32  FAITH-HEALING 

If  he  had  been  ill  of  any  disease  which  "  faith-heal- 
ers "  or  "  magnetizers "  could  relieve,  he  would  have 
received  equal  help.  While  these  persons  were  stand- 
ing and  the  susceptible  were  passing  ^'  under  the  in- 
fluence," I  was  simply  waiting,  "  only  this  and  nothing 
more." 

(&)  As  for  causing  the  bedridden  to  rise,  and  break- 
ing up  morbid  conditions  that  had  defied  medicine 
while  being  aggravated  by  it,  these  are  among  the 
simplest  applications  of  the  principle  involved.  The 
confidence  of  those  unfamiliar  with  the  subject  would 
be  taxed  beyond  endurance  by  the  narration  of  illus- 
trative facts  to  which  there  is  abundant  testimony 
and  which  can  be  paralleled  easily. 

(c)  Intelligent  missionaries  and  travelers  in  hea- 
then lands,  where  they  have  given  any  investigation 
to  the  subject,  unite  in  testifying  that  extraordinary 
cures  foUow  the  enchantments  and  magical  rites  em- 
ployed by  priests  and  physicians  claiming  super- 
natural powers. 

{(l)  The  influence  of  witch-doctors  among  the  ne- 
groes of  Africa,  both  to  produce  disease  and  cure  it, 
is  as  well  authenticated  as  any  facts  concerning  the 
"Dark  Continent";  nor  is  it  necessary  to  go  there  for 
illustrations,  which  can  be  found  in  great  numbers  in 
the  South.  Not  long  since  an  entire  community  in 
the  vicinity  of  Atlanta,  Georgia,  were  greatly  excited 
by  the  terrible  diseases  which  followed  threats  made 
by  a  doctor  of  this  sort.  Voodooism  has  power  to 
bring  on  diseases  and  also  to  cure;  nor  need  this 
burden  be  placed  upon  the  negroes  and  American  In- 
dians exclusively.  In  various  parts  of  Austria,  Ger- 
many, and  Russia,  among  the  peasantry  and  ignorant 
classes,  belief  in  witchcraft,  and  the  coincidences 
which  sustain  it,  still  exists ;  and  on  the  authority  of 
most  distinguished  physicians  and  surgeons  in  those 


FAITH-HEALING  33 


coimtries,  I  state  that  the  results  both  in  inflicting 
and  in  removing  what  they  never  inflicted,  which  fol- 
low the  operations  of  these  witch-doctors,  are  often 
astonishing. 

(e)  There  is  an  old  proverb  that  "when  rogues  fall 
out,  honest  men  get  their  dues."  It  is  also  true  that 
when  quacks  fall  to  discrediting  each  other,  prin- 
ciples may  be  discovered.  In  1865  there  came  to 
Detroit,  Michigan,  a  pupil  of  Dr.  Newton,  Bryant  by 
name,  who  performed  cures  as  successfully  as  Newton 
himself.  In  company  with  Dr.  J.  P.  Scott,  a  Pres- 
byterian minister  there,  I  visited  Dr.  Bryant,  and 
saw  him  operate  upon  a  score  or  more  of  patients 
(one  of  whom  had  been  supposed  to  be  doomed  to  a 
speedy  death  with  ovarian  tumor;  Dr.  Bryant  re- 
moved the  tumor,  after  which  she  lived  some  months 
and  died  of  debility).  To  comprehend  his  methods 
fully  I  was  operated  upon  for  dyspepsia.  About 
a  year  later,  returning  from  New  Orleans  to  Mem- 
phis, Tennessee,  I  found  on  board  the  steamer  Dr. 
Newton,  who  had  just  come  from  Havana.  He 
told  me  that  in  one  day  eight  hundred  persons  had 
applied  to  him  in  that  city.     On  the  same  steamer 

was  Dr.  B of  St.  Louis,  an  aged  physician  who 

had  been  to  Havana  with  a  wealthy  patient.  I  in- 
quired of  Dr.  B and  others  whether  such  great 

numbers  had  visited  Dr.  Newton,  and  was  told  that 
such  was  the  report,  that  vast  crowds  had  surrounded 
him  from  the  day  he  arrived  till  he  embarked,  and 
that  marvelous  tales  were  told  of  the  cures  he  per- 
formed. For  several  hours  a  day  during  four  days 
I  conversed  with  him  concerning  his  career  and  prin- 
ciples. My  conviction  is  that  he  believed  in  himself, 
and  also  that  he  would  use  any  means  to  accomplish 
his  ends.  He  would  glide  from  fanaticism  into  hypoc- 
risy, then  into  fanaticism,  and  from  that  into  common 


34  FAITH-HEALING 

sense,  with  the  rapidity  of  thought.  He  said  that  he 
was  influenced  by  spirits  who  told  him  what  to  say. 
He  would  use  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  in  what  would 
seem  a  blasphemous  manner;  standing  before  an  au- 
dience he  would  say,  ^'  I  am  now  about  to  send  forth 
shocks  of  vitality .''  He  would  move  his  arms  back- 
ward and  forward  and  exclaim,  "  In  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ,  I  command  the  diseases  in  the  persons  now 
present  to  disappear !  '^  He  would  go  to  the  paralytic 
or  lame  and  exclaim,  "In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ, 
be  healed  of  your  infirmity.^'  When  I  mentioned 
having  seen  "Dr."  Bryant,  Dr.  Newton  instantly  de- 
nounced him  as  an  "unmitigated  fraud  who  had  no 
genuine  healing  power.'^  He  claimed  that  he  had 
cured  Bryant  of  a  malignant  disease  with  which  he 
found  him  suffering  in  a  hospital ;  that  Bryant  had 
acted  as  his  amanuensis  for  some  time,  and  then  left 
him,  and  had  since  been  acting  in  opposition  to  him. 
Knowing  that  the  manipulations  by  Bryant  had  been 
followed  by  some  wonderful  results  in  Detroit,  I  said 
to  Dr.  Newton: 

"If  Bryant  be  an  unmitigated  fraud,  how  do  you 
account  for  his  cures?" 

"Oh!"  said  the  doctor,  "they  are  caused  by  the 
faith  of  the  people  and  the  concentration  of  their 
minds  upon  his  operations,  with  the  expectation  of 
being  cured.  Now,"  said  he,  "none  would  go  to  see 
Bryant  unless  they  had  some  faith  that  he  might  cure 
them,  and  when  he  begins  his  operations  with  great 
positiveness  of  manner,  and  they  see  the  crutches  he 
has,  and  hear  the  people  testify  that  they  have  been 
cured,  it  produces  a  tremendous  influence  upon  them; 
and  then  he  gets  them  started  in  the  way  of  exercis- 
ing, and  they  do  a  good  many  things  they  thought 
they  could  not  do;  their  appetites  and  spirits  revive, 


FAITH-HEALING  35 

and  if  toning  them  up  can  possibly  reduce  the  dis- 
eased tendency,  many  of  them  will  get  well." 

Said  I,  '^Doctor,  pardon  me,  is  not  that  a  correct 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  you  perform  your 
wonderful  works  1" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  he;  "the  difference  between  a  genuine 
healer  and  a  quack  Uke  Bryant  is  as  wide  as  the  poles." 

To  question  him  further  upon  this  line  would  have 
put  an  end  to  the  conversation  sooner  than  I  desired. 

But  testing  fundamentally  the  same  methods  before 
and  since  that  interview  on  many  occasions,  always 
under  the  great  disadvantage  of  not  being  able  to 
profess  supernatural  aid,  either  of  spirits  or  of  God, 
and  thus  being  shut  up  to  affecting  the  mind  by  the 
laws  of  suggestion  and  association,  and  by  the  man- 
ner assumed,  and  finding  a  result  similar  in  kind, 
and  in  some  cases  equal  in  extent,  to  any  produced 
by  Newton  or  others,  I  know  that  when  he  was 
explaining  to  me  the  success  of  Bryant  upon  the 
assumption  that  he  had  no  healing  power,  he  gave 
inadvertently  the  whole  explanation  of  the  healing  as 
far  as  it  is  independent  of  mere  physical  manipula- 
tion. Dr.  Newton  had  been  to  Havana  with  his 
daughter,  very  low  with  consumption.  He  was  taking 
her  North,  doubtful  if  she  would  reach  home  alive. 
On  my  saying,  "Doctor,  why  could  you  not  heal  her?" 
he  mournfully  replied,  "It  seems  as  if  we  cannot 
always  affect  our  own  kindred!" 

(/)  In  working  miraculous  cures,  the  Mormons 
are  fully  equal  to  Catholics  or  Protestants.  In  Eu- 
rope one  of  their  chief  methods  of  making  converts 
is  praying  with  the  sick,  who  often  recover;  and 
similar  success  has  often  aided  them  in  making  con- 
verts in  this  country.  The  Rev.  Nathaniel  Mead,  a 
highly  respected  clergyman,  to  whom  Dr.  Baird  refers 


36  PAITH-HEALma 

in  his  "History  of  the  Town  of  Rye,"  authorized  me  to 
publish  the  following  facts,  with  the  sanction  of  his 
name. 

In  the  year  1839  a  Mormon  priest  came  to  the 
neighborhood  where  Mr.  Mead  resided,  and  obtained 
access  to  the  room  of  an  intelligent  member  of  a 
Christian  church,  who  had  long  been  hopelessly  ill. 
He  asked  permission  to  pray  for  her.  Catching  at 
anything,  she  consented.  He  prayed  with  great  ear- 
nestness, and  she  at  once  began  to  improve  and  re- 
covered with  surprising  rapidity.  Convinced  by  the 
supposed  miracle  that  God  was  with  the  Mormon 
priest,  she  left  the  Christian  church  and  identified 
herself  with  the  Mormons  to  the  extent  of  deserting 
friends  and  home. 

In  the  same  locality,  another  member  of  a  Chris- 
tian church  had  been  severely  injured  by  a  bar  of 
iron  which  fell  upon  his  foot,  mangling  and  crushing 
it.  The  same  Mormon  priest  prayed  with  him,  with  a 
similar  result ;  the  wound  healed  very  soon,  and  the 
man  became  a  convert  to  Mormonism. 

So  great  was  the  faith  of  certain  Mormon  proselytes 
in  Europe  that  the  priesthood  could  work  miracles, 
that  one  who  had  lost  a  leg  and  could  not  secure 
another  through  the  prayers  of  the  Mormon  mis- 
sionaries, crossed  the  Atlantic  and  made  a  pilgrim- 
age to  Salt  Lake  City,  where  he  had  an  interview 
with  Brigham  Young.  This  fox-like  prophet  and 
miracle- worker,  who  could  cope  in  intellectual  keen- 
ness with  Horace  Greeley,  said  to  him,  "It  would 
be  easy  for  me  to  give  you  another  leg,  but  it  is  my 
duty  to  explain  to  you  the  consequences.  You  are 
now  well  advanced  in  life.  If  I  give  you  another  leg, 
you  will  indeed  have  two  legs  until  you  die,  which 
will  be  a  great  convenience ;  but  in  the  resurrection, 
not  only  will  the  leg  which  you  lost  rise  and  be 


FAITH-HEALING  37 

united  to  your  body,  but  also  the  one  wbieli  I  now 
give  you  J  thus  you  will  be  encumbered  with  three 
legs  throughout  eternity.  It  is  for  you  to  decide 
whether  you  would  prefer  the  transient  inconve- 
nience of  getting  along  with  one  leg  till  you  die,  or 
the  deformity  of  an  extra  leg  forever."  The  pilgi-im 
concluded  to  remain  maimed  in  this  life,  that  he 
might  not  be  deformed  in  that  which  is  to  come. 
This  may  be  a  myth,  but  it  falls  in  well  with  Biig- 
ham  Young's  known  character,  and  is  as  worthy  of 
respect  as  the  reasons  given  by  professedly  Christian 
faith-healers  for  not  working  miracles  of  this  kind, 
which  are  that  they  do  not  find  "  any  special  promise 
for  such  cases,"  and  that  ^^  they  find  no  instance  where 
the  apostles  gave  new  limbs." 


INDUCTIONS 

The  inductions  from  these  cases,  and  from  the  fact 
that  they  are  constantly  paralleled,  are : 

(1)  That  subjective  mental  states,  such  as  concen- 
tration of  the  attention  upon  a  part  with  or  with- 
out belief,  can  produce  effects  either  of  the  nature  of 
disease  or  cure. 

(2)  Active  incredulity  in  persons  not  acquainted 
with  these  laws,  but  willing  to  be  experimented  upon, 
is  often  more  favorable  to  sudden  effects  than  mere 
stupid,  acquiescent  credulity.  The  first  thing  the  in- 
credulous, hard-headed  man,  who  believes  that  "  there 
is  nothing  in  it,"  sees,  that  he  cannot  fathom,  may 
lead  him  to  succumb  instantly  to  the  dominant  idea. 

(3)  That  concentrated  attention,  with  faith,  can 
produce  powerful  effects ;  may  operate  efficiently  in 
acute  diseases,  with  instantaneous  rapidity  upon  ner- 
vous diseases,  or  upon  any  condition  capable  of  being 


38  FAITH-HEALING 

modified  by  direct  action  through  the  nervous  or  cir- 
culatory system. 

(4)  That  cures  can  be  wrought  in  diseases  of  accu- 
mulation, such  as  dropsy  and  tumors,  with  surprising 
rapidity,  where  the  increased  action  of  the  various 
excretory  functions  can  eliminate  morbid  growths. 

(5)  That  rheumatism,  sciatica,  gout,  neuralgia,  con- 
traction of  the  joints,  and  certain  inflammatory  condi- 
tions, may  suddenly  disappear  under  similar  mental 
states,  so  as  to  admit  of  helpful  exercise ;  which  exer- 
cise by  its  effect  upon  the  circulation,  and  through 
it  upon  the  nutrition  of  diseased  parts,  may  produce 
a  permanent  cure. 

(6)  That  the  "mind-cure,"  apart  from  the  absurd 
philosophy  of  the  different  sects  into  which  it  is  al- 
ready divided,  and  its  repudiation  of  all  medicine, 
has  a  basis  in  the  laws  of  nature.  The  pretense  of 
mystery,  however,  is  either  honest  ignorance  or  con- 
summate quackery. 

(7)  That  all  are  unable  to  dispense  with  surgery, 
where  the  case  is  in  the  slightest  degree  complex  and 
mechanical  adjustments  are  necessary;  also  that  they 
cannot  restore  a  limb,  or  eye,  or  finger,  or  even  a 
tooth.  But  in  certain  displacements  of  internal  or- 
gans the  consequence  of  nervous  debility,  which  are 
sometimes  aided  by  surgery,  they  all  sometimes  suc- 
ceed by  developing  latent  energy  through  mental 
stimulus. 


THE  MIRACLES  OF  CHRIST  AND  HIS  APOSTLES 

We  find  that  in  comparison  with  the  Mormons, 
Spiritualists,  Mind-Curers,  Roman  Catholics,  and  Mag- 
netizers,  the  Protestant  Faith-Healers  can  accomplish 
as  much,  but  no  more;  that  they  have  the  same  limi- 


FAITH-HEALING  39 

tations  as  to  diseases  they  cannot  heal,  and  injuries 
they  cannot  repair ;  as  to  particular  cases  of  diseases 
that  they  can  generally  cui-e,  but  which  occasionally 
defy  them ;  and  as  to  their  liability  to  relapses.  We 
also  find  that  their  phenomena  can  be  paralleled  under 
the  operation  of  laws  with  which  "experts'' upon  the 
subject,  whether  medical  or  otherwise,  are  acquainted, 
but  which  are  not  recognized  by  the  general  public, 
including  many  physicians  of  various  schools,  clergy- 
men, lawyers,  educators,  and  literary  persons  of  both 
sexes  who  might  be  expected  to  understand  them. 

It  is  necessary  to  examine  the  New  Testament,  to 
ascertain  whether  Christ  was  subject  to  the  limita- 
tions which  have  marked  all  these.  The  record  states 
that  he  healed  ^^all  manner  of  disease,  and  all  manner 
of  sickness."  It  declares  that  "they  brought  unto  him 
all  that  were  sick,  holden  of  divers  diseases  and  tor- 
ments, possessed  with  devils,  and  those  that  were 
lunatic  [new  version,  epileptic]  and  palsied;  and  he 
healed  them."  He  did  these  things  uniformly,  and 
sent  word  to  John,  "The  Uind  receive  their  sight  and 
the  lame  walk,  the  lepers  are  cleansed  and  the  deaf 
hear,  and  the  dead  are  raised  npP  He  restored  the 
withered  hand,  not  by  the  slow  process  of  a  change  in 
the  circulation,  and  gradual  change  in  the  nutrition, 
followed  by  structural  alteration;  but  it  was  instantly 
made  "whole  like  as  the  other."  Not  only  so,  he  re- 
stored limbs  that  had  been  cut  off.  See  New  Revision, 
Matthew  xv.  30:  "And  there  came  unto  him  great 
multitudes  having  with  them  the  lame,  blind,  dumb, 
maimed^  and  many  others,  and  they  cast  them  down 
at  his  feet;  and  he  healed  them;  insomuch  that  the 
multitude  wondered,  when  they  saw  the  dumb  speak- 
ing, the  maimed  whole,  and  the  lame  walking,  and  the 
blind  seeing."  The  last  miracle  that  Christ  wrought 
before  his  crucifixion,  according  to  St.  Luke,  was  one 


40  FAITH-HEALING 

that  coiild  defy  all  these  "faith-healers^'  of  every 
species  to  parallel.  See  New  Revision,  Luke  xxii.  50 : 
*'And  a  certain  one  of  them  smote  the  servant  of  the 
high  priest  and  struck  off  his  right  ear.  But  Jesus 
answered  and  said,  Suffer  ye  thus  far.  And  he  touched 
his  ear  and  healed  him.^' 

Rational  men  familiar  with  the  laws  expounded  in 
this  paper  could  not  believe  this  record  if  the  mighty 
works  told  of  Christ  and  the  apostles  were  comprised 
simply  in  an  account  of  wonderful  tales.  They  would 
reason  that  it  is  much  more  probable  that  those  who 
testified  to  these  things  were  deceived  or  exaggerated, 
or  that  those  who  received  the  original  accounts  added 
to  them,  than  that  they  should  have  happened.  But 
when  those  who  make  the  record  convey  to  us  ancient 
prophecies  attested  and  still  preserved  by  the  Jews 
and  fulfilled  in  the  character  and  works  of  Christ ;  the 
account  of  his  rejection  and  crucifixion  by  the  Jews; 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  the  parable  of  the  prodi- 
gal son;  the  Golden  Rule;  the  sublime  and  spirit- 
ual doctrines  taught  by  Christ ;  and  the  picture  of  a 
life  and  of  a  death  scene  that  have  no  parallel  in  hu- 
man history  or  fiction,  and  declare  that  he  who  taught 
these  things  did  such  and  such  mighty  works  before 
us,  we  saw  them  and  were  convinced  by  the  miracles 
that  he  did,  "that  he  was  a  teacher  come  from  God,"  it 
is  no  longer  a  question  simply  of  believing  tilings  not 
included  in  the  laws  of  nature.  When  these  doctrines 
are  applied  to  men's  own  needs  and  lives,  they  prove 
their  divine  origin  by  the  radical  and  permanent 
changes  which  they  make  in  character.  Then  the 
subjects  of  these  changes  accept  the  truthfulness  of 
the  record  of  miracles  in  a  remote  past  which  they 
cannot  now  test  upon  the  authority  of  the  spiritual 
truths  which  they  are  capable  of  subjecting  to  the 
test  of  practical  experience. 


FAITH-HEALING  41 

Some  allege  that  even  the  apostles  could  not  restore 
limbs  that  had  been  cut  off,  or  that  had  been  wanting 
from  birth.  The  record  shows  that  the  apostles  made 
no  distinction  in  cases.  Ananias  prayed  for  Paul,  and 
^^  straightway  there  fell  from  his  eyes  as  it  had  been 
scales.''  When  Tabitha  lay  dead,  Peter,  after  prayer, 
"turning  to  the  body  said,  ^Tabitha,  arise,'"  and  he 
"presented  her  alive."  The  chains  fell  off  Peter  in 
the  prison,  and  "  the  iron  gate  opened  for  him  and 
the  angel  of  its  own  accord."  As  Peter  had,  in  the 
first  miracle  after  Pentecost,  given  strength  to  a  man 
who  had  been  lame  from  his  mother^ s  womb,  so  Paul, 
seeing  a  man  at  Lystra,  "  a  cripple  from  his  mother's 
womb  who  had  never  walked,"  said,  "with  a  loud 
voice,  ^  Stand  upright  on  thy  feet,'  and  he  leaped  up 
and  walked."  They  cast  out  devils  wherever  it  was 
necessary,  and  when  Eutychus  fell  from  the  third 
story,  and  "  was  taken  up  dead,"  Paul  restored  him  to 
life  again.  On  the  island  of  Melita,  a  viper  hung  upon 
the  hand  of  Paul,  and  "  when  the  barbarians  saw  the 
beast  hanging  from  his  hand,  they  said  one  to  another. 
No  doubt  this  man  is  a  murderer,  whom,  though  he 
hath  escaped  from  the  sea,  yet  justice  hath  not  suffered 
to  live  " ;  but  when  they  remained  long  in  expectation 
and  beheld  nothing  amiss  come  to  him,  they  changed 
their  minds  and  said  he  was  a  "god."  We  are  in- 
formed that  after  that  the  diseases  of  the  entire  pop- 
ulation of  the  island  were  healed. 


CLAIMS  OF   "christian  FAITH-HEALERS,"  TECHNI- 
CALLY SO   CALLED,   EFFECTUALLY  DISCREDITED 

In  examining  the  healing  works  both  of  Christ  and 
the  apostles,  it  appears  that  there  is  not  a  uniform  law 
that  the  sick  should  exercise  faith,  and  that  it  was 


42  FAITH-HEALING 

not  necessary  that  their  friends  should  exercise  it,  nor 
that  either  they  or  theii'  friends  should  do  so.  Some- 
times the  sick  alone  believed ;  at  others,  their  friends 
believed  and  they  knew  nothing  about  it;  again,  both 
the  sick  and  their  friends  believed,  and  on  some  oc- 
casions neither  the  sick  nor  the  friends.  No  account 
of  failure  on  the  part  of  Christ,  or  of  the  apostles 
after  his  ascension,  to  cure  amj  case  can  be  found. 
Neither  is  there  a  syllable  concerning  any  relapse  or 
the  danger  of  such  a  thing,  nor  any  cautions  to  the 
cured,  ^^not  to  mind  sensations,''^  or  that  ^^  sensations  are 
tests  of  faitlij^^  nor  any  other  such  quackery,  in  the 
New  Testament. 

Claims  of  Christian  faith-healers  to  supernatural 
powers  are  discredited  by  three  facts : 

(1)  They  exhibit  no  supremacy  over  pagans,  spirit- 
ualists, magnetizers,  mind-curers,  etc. 

(2)  They  cannot  parallel  the  mighty  works  that 
Christ  produced,  nor  the  works  of  the  apostles. 

(3)  All  that  they  really  accomplish  can  be  paralleled 
without  assuming  any  supernatural  cause,  and  a  for- 
mula can  be  constructed  out  of  the  elements  of  the 
human  mind  which  will  give  as  high  average  results 
as  their  prayers  or  anointings. 

That  formula  in  its  lowest  form  is  ^'  concentrated 
attention^  If  to  this  be  added  reverence,  whether  for 
the  true  and  ever-living  God,  false  gods,  spirits,  the 
operator,  witches,  magnetism,  electricity,  or  simple 
unnamed  mtjstery,  the  effect  is  increased  greatly.  If 
to  that  be  added  confident  expectancy  of  particular 
results,  the  effect  in  causing  sickness  or  relieving  it 
may  be  appalling.  Passes,  magnets,  anointings  with 
oil,  are  useful  only  as  they  produce  concentration  of 
attention,  reverence,  and  confident  expectancy.  Those 
whose  reputation  or  personal  force  of  thought,  man- 
ner, or  speech  can  produce  these  mental  states,  may 


FAITH-HEALING  43 

dispense  with  them  all,  as  Mesmer  finally  did  with 
the  "  magnets/'  and  as  many  faith-healers  and  the 
Roman  Catholics  do  with  the  oil.i 


THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  ANSWER  TO  PRAYER 

Is  there  then  no  warrant  in  the  New  Testament  for 
the  ordinary  Christian  to  pray  for  the  sick,  and  is 
there  no  utility  in  such  prayers  1  "  There  's  a  Di- 
vinity that  shapes  our  ends,  rough  hew  them  how  we 
will."  The  New  Testament  affirms  that  '^All  things 
work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God.''  It 
teaches  that  the  highest  good  is  the  knowledge  and 
love  of  God,  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God  has  con- 
stant access  to  the  minds  of  men,  and  sets  forth  an 
all-inclusive  doctrine  of  Providence  without  whom 
not  even  a  sparrow  falls.  It  does  not  say  that  prayer 
will  always  secure  the  recovery  of  the  sick,  for  it 
gives  the  instance  of  Paul  who  had  a  "  thorn  in  the 
flesh,"  and  who  besought  the  Lord  thrice  that  this 
thing  should  depart  from  him,  but  received,  ^'My 
grace  is  sufficient  for  thee." 

None  can  demonstrate  that  God  cannot  work 
through  second  causes,  bringing  about  results  which, 
when  they  come,  appear  to  be  entirely  natural,  but 
which  would  not  have  come  except  through  special 
providence,  or  in  answer  to  prayer.  The  New  Testa- 
ment declares  that  he  does  so  interpose  ^^  according 
to  his  will."  It  was  not  his  will  for  Paul,  and  he  did 
not  remove  the  thorn,  but  gave  spiritual  blessings 
instead.  Prayer  for  the  sick  is  one  of  the  most  con- 
soling privileges,  and  it  would  be  a  strange  omission 

iThe  Roman  Catholics  use  oil  in  the  "sacrament  of  extreme 
unction,"  which  is  administered  in  view  of  death. 


44  FAITH-HEALING 

if  we  were  not  entitled  to  pray  for  comfort,  for  spir- 
itual help,  for  such  graces  as  will  render  continued 
chastening  unnecessary,  and  for  recovery,  when  that 
which  is  desired  is  in  harmony  with  the  will  of  God. 
Belief  that  when  the  prayer  is  in  accordance  with  the 
mind  of  God,  '^  the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the  sick, 
and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up,"  is  supported  by 
many  explicit  promises.  But  as  all  who  die  must  die 
from  disease,  old  age,  accident,  or  intentional  vio- 
lence, every  person  must  at  some  time  be  in  a  state 
when  prayer  cannot  prolong  his  life. 

When  we  or  others  are  suffering  from  any  malady, 
the  Christian  doctrine  is  that  we  are  to  use  the  best 
means  at  command,  and  to  pray,  ^^  Father,  if  it  be 
possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me  j  nevertheless,  not 
my  will  but  thine  be  done."  The  prayer  may  be  an- 
swered by  its  effect  upon  the  mind  of  the  patient ;  by 
directing  the  physician,  the  nurse,  or  the  friends  to 
the  use  of  such  means  as  may  hasten  recovery  j  or, 
by  a  direct  effect  produced  upon  the  physical  system, 
behind  the  visible  system  of  causes  and  effects,  but 
reaching  the  patient  through  them ;  if  the  patient  re- 
covers, it  will  seem  as  though  he  recovered  naturally, 
though  it  may  be  in  an  unusual  manner.  The  Chris- 
tian in  his  personal  religious  experience  may  believe 
that  his  prayer  was  the  element  that  induced  God  to 
interfere  with  the  course  of  nature  aud  prolong  life. 
Assuming  that  there  is  a  God,  who  made  and  loves 
men,  none  can  show  his  faith  irrational  or  unscrip- 
tural;  but  such  testimony  can  be  of  no  value  to  dem- 
onstrate to  others  a  fact  in  the  plane  of  science. 
When  the  Christian  comes  to  die,  he  must  then  rest, 
even  while  praying  for  life,  upon  the  promise,  "  My 
grace  is  sufficient  for  thee." 

Faith-healers  represent  God  as  interfering  con- 
stantly, not  by  cause  and  effect  in  the  order  of  nature^ 


FAITH-HEALING  45 

but  affecting  the  result  directly.  That  they  do  not 
surpass  those  who  are  not  Christians,  but  use  either 
false  pretenses  or  natural  laws,  and  that  they  are  in- 
ferior in  healing  power  to  Christ  and  the  apostles, 
condemn  their  pretensions.  Nor  does  it  avail  them 
to  say,  '^ Christ  would  not  come  down  from  the  cross 
when  taunted  by  unbelievers."  They  might  perhaps 
with  propriety  refuse  a  test  for  the  tesVs  sake;  — 
though  Elijah  forced  one.  But  a  radical  difference 
between  their  work  and  what  it  accomplishes,  and 
those  who,  they  say,  have  no  divine  help,  should  be 
manifest.  Some  of  them  affirm  that  the  Mormons, 
Newton,  and  others  do  their  mighty  works  by  the  aid 
of  devils.  If  so,  since  casting  out  devils  was  miracle- 
working  power  of  low  grade,  it  is  wonderful  that 
none  of  these  persons  have  been  able  to  cast  out  the 
devils  from  any  of  the  large  number  who  are  working 
in  this  way,  and  thus  demonstrate  their  superiority 
as  the  apostles  vindicated  their  claims  against  Simon 
the  sorcerer  and  others. 

Faith-cure,  technically  so  called,  as  now  held  by 
many  Protestants,  is  a  pitiable  superstition,  danger- 
ous in  its  final  effects. 

It  may  be  asked.  What  harm  can  result  from  allow- 
ing persons  to  believe  in  ^^faith-healing"?  Very  great 
indeed.  Its  tendency  is  to  produce  an  effeminate  type 
of  character  which  shrinks  from  pain  and  concen- 
trates attention  upon  self  and  its  sensations.  It  sets 
up  false  grounds  for  determining  whether  a  person 
is  or  is  not  in  the  favor  of  God.  It  opens  the  door 
to  every  superstition,  such  as  attaching  importance  to 
dreams 5  signs;  opening  the  Bible  at  random,  expect- 
ing the  Lord  so  to  influence  their  thoughts  and  minds 
that  they  can  gather  his  will  from  the  first  passage 
they  see;  "impressions,"  ^^ assurances,"  etc.  Practi- 
cally it  gives  support  to  other  delusions  which  claim 


46  FAITH-HEALING 

a  supernatural  element.  It  seriously  diminishes  the 
influence  of  Christianity  by  subjecting  it  to  a  test 
which  it  cannot  endure.  It  diverts  attention  from 
the  moral  and  spiritual  transformation  which  Chris- 
tianity professes  to  work,  a  transformation  which 
wherever  made  manifests  its  divinity,  so  that  none 
who  behold  it  need  any  other  proof  that  it  is  of  God. 
It  destroys  the  ascendancy  of  reason,  and  thus,  like 
similar  delusions,  it  is  seK-perpetuating;  and  its  nat- 
ural and,  in  some  minds,  irresistible  tendency  is  to 
mental  derangement. 

Little  hope  exists  of  freeing  those  already  entangled, 
but  it  is  highly  important  to  prevent  others  from  fall- 
ing into  so  plausible  and  luxurious  a  snare,  and  to 
show  that  Christianity  is  not  to  be  held  responsible 
for  aberrations  of  the  imagination  which  belong  ex- 
clusively to  no  race,  clime,  age,  party,  or  creed. 


DEFENSE  OF  FAITH-HEALERS  EXAMINED 

Presentation  to  the  public,  through  ^'The  Cen- 
tury Magazine,"  of  the  substance  of  the  foregoing  ex- 
cited much  discussion,  and  led  the  most  conspicuous 
advocates  of  ^^  faith-healing'^  therein  exposed  to  make 
such  defense  as  they  could.  But  confident  assertions 
of  supernatural  powers,  and  vehement  denials  of  the 
sufficiency  of  natural  causes  to  account  for  their  re- 
sults, and  quotations  of  misapplied  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture, have  been  the  only  defensive  weapons  of  the 
faith-healers.  They  have,  however,  been  compelled 
to  avow  that  ^Hhey  keep  no  record  of  failures,  as 
they  do  not  depend  upon  phenomena  or  cases,  but 
upon  the  divine  "Word." 

This  admission  is  fatal.  If  they  cannot  do  the 
works,  either  they  have  not  the  faith,  or  they  misun- 


FAITH-HEALING  47 

derstsnd  the  promises  they  quote.  Christ  and  the 
apostles  depended  upon  the  phenomena  to  sustain 
their  claims;  and  when  the  apostles  failed  in  a  single 
instance  Christ  called  them  a  faithless  and  perverse 
generation.  The  failure  of  these  religious  thauma- 
turgists  to  surpass  other  manipulators  in  the  same 
line  in  the  nature  and  extent  of  their  mighty  works 
has  compelled  them  to  say  that  they  do  not  depend 
upon  phenomena,  and  make  no  record  of  unsuccessful 
attempts  and  relapses. 

The  difficulty  is  that  they  apply  promises  to  the 
ordinary  Christian  life  which  relate  to  the  power  of 
working  miracles.  That  they  misunderstand  and 
misapply  them  is  clear  also  from  the  fact  that  most 
spiritually  minded  Christians  in  the  greatest  emer- 
gencies have  been  unable  to  work  miracles.  The 
reformers — Calvin,  Knox,  Luther,  etc. — could  not. 
John  Wesley,  in  his  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester, 
enumerates  all  the  miraculous  gifts  possessed  by  the 
apostles,  and  expressly  denies  that  he  lays  claim  to 
any  of  them.  Judson,  Carey,  Martyn,  Duff,  Brainerd,^ 
and  other  eminent  missionaries  trying  to  preach  the 
Gospel  among  Pagans,  Mohammedans,  and  Pan- 
theists, most  of  whose  priests  are  believed  by  the 
people  to  be  able  to  work  miracles,  were  unable  to 

1  Brainerd,  in  his  narrative  of  his  work  among  the  American 
Indians,  confesses  his  great  embarrassment  as  follows : 

'*  When  I  have  instructed  them  respecting  the  miracles 
wrought  by  Christ  in  healing  the  sick,  etc.,  and  mentioned  them 
as  evidences  of  his  divine  mission,  and  of  the  truth  of  his  doc- 
trines, they  have  quickly  referred  to  the  wonders  of  that  kind 
which  [a  diviner]  had  performed  by  his  magic  charms,  whence 
they  had  a  high  opinion  of  him  and  of  his  superstitious  notions, 
which  seemed  to  be  a  fatal  obstruction  to  some  of  them  in  the 
way  of  their  receiving  the  Gospel." 

Yet,  though  Brainerd  could  do  none  of  these  mighty  works, 
he  was  the  means  of  the  conversion  of  that  very  diviner  by  the 
influence  of  his  own  life  and  the  spiritual  truths  which  he  taught. 


48  FAITH-HEALING 

prove  their  commission  by  any  special  power  over 
disease,  or  by  other  mighty  works.  In  Algiers,  after 
its  conquest  by  the  French,  the  power  of  juggling 
priests  was  so  great  that  it  was  impossible  to  pre- 
serve order  until  Robert  Houdin,  the  magician,  was 
sent  over,  whose  power  so  far  surpassed  that  of 
the  priests  that  their  ascendancy  over  the  people  was 
broken. 

The  charge  that  the  writer  is  not  a  spiritually 
minded  man  was  to  be  expected :  this  is  the  common 
cry  of  the  superstitious  when  their  errors  are  exposed. 
But  the  most  extraordinary  allegation  was  made  by 
A.  B.  Simpson,  founder  of  a  sect  of  faith-healers  in 
the  city  of  New  York.  He  states  his  belief  that  the 
cases  "  of  healing  and  other  supernatural  phenom- 
ena ascribed  to  Spiritualism  cannot  be  explained  awa}^ 
either  as  tricks  of  clever  performers  or  the  mere  effects 
of  will  power,  but  are,  in  very  many  instances,  directly 
supernatural  and  superhuman";  and  asserts  that: 
'■'■  The  cures  to  which  Dr.  Buckley  refers  among  hea- 
then nations,  the  Voodoos  of  the  negroes,  and  the 
Indian  medicine  men,  are  all  of  the  same  character 
as  Spiritualism."  On  the  subject  of  Roman  Catholic 
miracles  he  says : 

''Where  there  is  a  simple  and  genuine  faith  in  a  Romanist, — 
and  we  have  found  it  in  some, —  God  will  honor  it  as  well  as  in 
a  Protestant.  .  .  .  But  when,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  cor- 
rupted by  the  errors  of  their  Church,  and  exercising  faith,  not 
in  God,  but  in  the  relics  of  superstition,  or  the  image  of  the 
Virgin,  we  see  no  difference  between  the  Romanist  and  the 
Spiritualist,  and  we  should  not  wonder  at  all  if  the  devil  should 
be  permitted  to  work  his  lying  wonders  for  them,  as  he  does  for 
the  superstitious  Pagan  or  the  possessed  medium." 

This  means  that  if  the  Roman  Catholics  are  devout, 
it  is  God  who  does  the  mighty  works  for  them;  if 


FAITH-HEALING  49 

superstitious  it  is  the  devil.  As  many  of  the  most  re- 
markable phenomena  connected  with  Roman  Catholi- 
cism have  occurred  where  the  Virgin  is  most  promi- 
nent, as  at  the  Grotto  of  Lourdes,  and  at  Knock 
Chapel  (a  girl  having  been  cured  recently  by  drink- 
ing water  with  which  some  of  the  mortar  of  the 
chapel  had  been  mingled),  it  is  pertinent  to  ask,  if 
supernatural  operations  are  involved  in  both,  whether 
the  works  of  God  might  not  be  expected  to  be  superior 
to  those  of  the  devil? 

Mr.  Simpson  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  what  he  calls 
"divine  healing"  is  "a  great  practical,  Scriptural,  and 
uniform  principle,  which  does  not  content  itself  with 
a  few  incidental  cases  for  psychological  diversion  or 
illustration,  but  meets  the  tens  of  thousands  of  God's 
suffering  children  with  a  simple  practical  remedy 
which  all  may  take  and  claim  if  they  will."  Such 
propositions  as  this  are  as  wild  as  the  weather  pre- 
dictions that  terrify  the  ignorant  and  superstitious, 
but  are  the  amusement  and  scorn  of  all  rational  and 
educated  persons ;  as  the  following,  from  the  ''  Con- 
gregationalist"  of  Boston,  shows: 


We  have  taken  pains,  before  publishing  it,  to  confirm,  by- 
correspondence,  the  singular  case  of  a  woman's  death  in  a  re- 
ligious meeting  at  Peekskill,  N.  Y.  Eev.  Mr.  Simpson,  for- 
merly a  Presbyterian  preacher,  was  holding  a  Holiness  Conven- 
tion, Major  Cole,  the  ''Michigan  Evangelist,"  being  a  helper.  In 
an  ''  anointing  service  "  an  elderly  lady,  long  afaieted  with  heart- 
disease,  who  had  walked  a  long  way  after  a  hard  day's  work, 
presented  herself  for  "divine  healing,"  and  was  anointed  by 
Mr.  Simpson.  A  few  minutes  after  she  fainted  and  died,  the 
finding  of  the  jury  of  inquest  being  that  her  death  was  from 
heart-disease,  but  hastened  by  the  excitement  of  the  service. 
One  would  suppose  that  the  case  would  be  a  warning  against 
the  danger  of  such  experiments,  if  not  a  rebuke  of  the  almost 
blasphemous  assumption  of  miraculous  power. 


50  FAITH-HEALING 


ERROR  IN  MENTAL  PHYSIOLOGY 

A  RADICAL  error  in  mental  physiology  which  most 
of  these  persons  hold  relates  to  the  will.  Referring 
to  the  theory  which  explains  the  cure  of  many  diseases 
by  bringing  the  person  to  exercise  special  will  power, 
Mr.  Simpson  says: 

Why  is  it  that  our  physicians  and  philanthropists  cannot  get 
the  sick  to  rise  up  and  exercise  this  will  power?  Oh!  that  is  the 
trouble  to  which  we  have  already  adverted.  The  will  is  as  weak 
as  the  frame,  and  the  power  that  is  needed  to  energize  both  is 
God:  and  Faith  is  just  another  name  for  the  new  divine  WILL 
which  God  breathes  into  the  paralyzed  mind,  enabling  it  to  call 
upon  the  enfeebled  body  to  claim  the  same  divine  power  for  its 
healing.  We  are  quite  willing  to  admit  the  blessed  effect  of  a 
quickened  faith  and  hope  and  will  upon  the  body  of  the  sick. 
This  is  not  all.     There  must  also  be  a  direct  physical  touch. 

A  hotel-keeper  in  New  Hampshire,  lingering  at  the 
point  of  death,  as  was  supposed,  for  weeks  with 
typhus,  saw  the  flames  burst  from  his  barn.  "Great 
God ! "  cried  he,  '^  there  is  nobody  to  let  the  cattle  out ! " 
He  sprang  from  the  bed,  cared  for  the  cattle,  broke 
out  in  a  profuse  perspiration,  and  recovered.  The 
burning  barn  gave  him  no  strength,  but  the  excite- 
ment developed  latent  energy  and  will. 

Mrs.  H.  had  long  been  ill,  was  emaciated  and  so 
weak  that  she  could  not  raise  a  glass  of  water  to  her 
lips.  One  day  the  house  took  fire.  She  sprang  from 
the  bed,  seized  a  chest  full  of  odds  and  ends,  and  car- 
ried it  out  of  doors.  This,  as  a  result  of  an  effort  of 
will,  she  could  not  have  done  when  in  health  without 
help. 

A  letter  recently  received  from  the  Rev.  J.  L.  Hum- 
phrey, for  many  years  a  missionary  in  India,  now  of 
Richfield  Springs,  N.  Y.,  says: 


FAITH-HEALING  51 

The  following  instance  came  under  my  observation  in  India. 
An  of&cer  of  the  Government  was  compelled  to  send  native  mes- 
sengers out  into  a  district  infected  with  cholera.  As  he  sent 
them  out  they  took  the  disease  and  died ;  and  it  came  to  such  a 
pass  among  the  Government  peons  under  his  charge  that  a  man 
thought  himself  doomed  when  selected  for  that  duty.  A  German 
doctor  in  that  region  had  put  forth  the  theory  that  inoculation 
with  a  preparation  of  quassia  was  a  specific  for  cholera — a 
simon-pure  humbug.  But  this  gentleman  seized  the  idea;  he 
cut  the  skin  of  the  messenger's  arm  with  a  lancet  so  as  to  draw 
some  blood,  and  then  rubbed  in  the  quassia,  telling  them  what 
the  doctor  had  said  about  it.    Not  a  man  thus  treated  died. 

The  surprising  strength  and  endurance  exhibited 
by  lunatics  and  delirious  persons  often  show  that  the 
amount  of  power  which  can  be  commanded  by  the  will 
under  an  ordinary  stimulant  by  no  means  equals 
the  latent  strength.  Equally  true  is  it  that  mental 
and  emotional  excitement  often  renders  the  subject 
of  it  unconscious  of  pain,  which  otherwise  would  be 
unendurable.  Even  without  such  excitement,  a  sud- 
den shock  may  cause  a  disease  to  disappear. 

The  following  was  narrated  to  me  by  an  eminent 
physician : 

I  was  once  called  to  see  a  lady,  not  a  regular  patient  of  mine, 
who  had  suffered  for  months  with  rheumatism.  Her  situation 
was  desperate,  and  everything  had  been  done  that  I  could  think 
of  except  to  give  her  a  vapor  bath.  There  was  no  suitable  ap- 
paratus, and  I  was  obliged  to  extemporize  it.  Finding  some  old 
tin  pipe,  I  attached  it  to  the  spout  of  the  tea-kettle  and  then 
put  the  other  end  of  the  pipe  under  the  bed-clothes,  and  directed 
the  servant  to  half  fill  the  kettle,  so  as  to  leave  room  for  the 
vapor  to  generate  and  pass  through  the  pipe  into  the  bed.  I 
then  sat  down  to  read,  and  waited  for  the  result.  The  servant 
girl,  however,  desiring  to  do  all  she  could  for  her  mistress,  had 
filled  the  kettle  to  the  very  lid.  Of  course  there  was  no  room 
for  steam  to  form,  and  the  hot  water— boiling,  in  fact— ran 
through  the  pipe  and  reached  the  body  of  the  patient.  The 
instant  it  struck  her  she  gave  a  shriek  and  said,  "Doctor,  you 
have  scalded  mel"  and  as  she  said  this  she  leaped  out  of  bed. 


52  FAITH-HEALING 

''But  now,"  said  the  physician,  "came  the  wonder.  The  rheu- 
matism was  all  gone  in  that  instant,  nor  did  she  have  any  re- 
turn of  it,  to  my  knowledge." 


A  "missing  link" 

If  there  were  no  other,  a  fatal  stumbling-block  in 
the  way  of  the  faith-healers  is  their  failure  in  surgical 
cases.  But  they  seize  everything^that  could  even  point 
at  extrahuman  interference  with  the  order  of  nature. 
The  following  is  taken  from  the  "  Provincial  Medical 
JournaP'  of  Leicester  and  London,  June  1, 1886,  and 
is  an  illustration  of  the  subject: 

Another  "wonderful  cure"  at  the  Bethshan.  T.  M.  N.,  during 
a  voyage  from  Liverpool  to  New  York  on  board  the  steamship 
Helvetia,  sustained  a  compound  fracture  of  the  left  humerus  at 
about  the  line  of  junction  of  the  middle  with  the  lower  third. 
The  injury  was  treated  for  a  few  days  by  the  mercantile  sur- 
geon. On  his  arrival  at  New  York  on  December  29,  1883  (four 
days  after  the  accident),  he  was  transferred  to  a  public  hospital. 
He  was  at  once  treated,  the  fracture  being  fixed  in  a  plaster-of- 
Paris  dressing,  and  this  mode  of  mechanical  fixation  was  con- 
tinued for  three  months,  when  the  surgeon,  perceiving  no  pro- 
gress toward  union,  performed  the  operiition  of  resetting  the 
fractured  ends.  The  arm  and  forearm  were  again  put  in  plaster- 
of -Paris,  and  retained  until  his  arrival  in  Liverpool,  five  months 
after  the  date  of  the  injury.  On  June  10,  1884,  he  submitted 
his  arm  for  my  inspection,  when  on  removal  of  the  dressing  I 
found  there  was  no  attempt  at  repair,  and  that  the  cutaneous 
wound  pertaining  to  the  operation  had  not  healed.  The  method 
of  treatment  I  pursued  was  the  following:  The  forearm  was  first 
slung  from  the  neck  by  its  wrist ;  the  ulcer  was  attended  to,  and 
an  area  inclusive  of  the  fracture  partially  strangulated  by  means 
of  india-rubber  bauds.  This  was  continued  for  three  months, 
but  without  appreciable  result.  I  therefore,  in  addition  to  this 
treatment,  percussed  the  site  of  fracture  every  three  weeks. 
Fom'  months  passed,  and  yet  no  change.  After  seven  months 
the  ulceration  was  healed,  and  the  limb  slung  as  before,  partially 
strangulated  and  percussed  monthly,  but,  in  addition,  maintained 
well  fixed  by  a  splint,  and  carefully  readjusted  on  the  occasion 
when  percussion  was  employed.     At  length  I  found  evidence 


FAITH-HEALING  53 

that  repair  was  progressing,  for  at  this  date,  December,  1885,  it 
required  some  force  to  spring  the  connection.  I  now  knew  it 
could  only  be  a  question  of  a  few  weeks  for  consolidation  to  be 
complete,  but  thought  it  wise  for  some  little  time  to  leave  the 
arm  protected,  lest  rough  usage  should  destroy  the  good  attained. 
However,  the  patient  suddenly  disappeared,  and  on  the  loth  of 
April  I  received  the  following  interesting  document : 

''  No.  2  WooDHOUSE  St.,  Walton  Road, 
''Monday,  April  12th. 

''Dear  Sir:  I  trust  after  a  very  careful  perusal  of  the  few 
following  words  I  may  retain  the  same  share  of  your  favorable 
esteem  as  previously,  and  that  you  will  not  think  too  hardly  of 
me  because,  although  I  have  done  a  deed  which  you  would  not 
sanction,  and  which  was  against  your  injunctions.  Still,  I  must 
write  and  let  you  know  all  about  it,  because  I  know  you  have 
been  so  kind  to  me  from  a  purely  disinterested  motive.  I  dare 
say  you  remember  me  mentioning  the  'faith-healing'  some 
time  ago,  and  to  which  you  remarked  that  '  it  would  do  no 
harm  to  try  it,  but  that  you  thought  I  should  require  mighty 
faith.' 

"Well,  I  have  tried  it,  and  I  am  sure  that  you  will  be  glad  to 
hear  that  my  arm  is  not  only  in  my  sleeve,  but  in  actual  use, 
and  has  been  for  the  past  three  weeks.  The  pain  I  bore  after 
the  last  beating  was  something  dreadful,  and  being  in  great 
trouble  at  my  lodgings  at  the  time,  I  was  downhearted.  I  was 
thrown  out  of  my  lodgings,  and  being  quite  destitute,  I  reasoned 
in  myself,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  if  I  really  asked 
God  to  make  it  better  right  away  he  would,  and  I  was  told  that 
if  I  would  do  away  with  all  means  and  leave  it  to  him,  it  would 
be  all  right.  So  I  just  took  off  all  your  bandages  and  splint, 
and  put  it  injny  sleeve.  I  have  now  the  use  of  my  arm,  and  it 
is  just  the  same  as  my  right  one— just  as  strong.  Several 
times  I  called  at  your  house  when  on  my  way  to  the  Bethshan, 
George's  street,  but  Dr.  Gormley  slammed  me  out,  and  therefore 
I  did  not  like  to  come  again. 

"I  cannot  describe  how  thankful  I  am,  doctor,  for  your  past 
kindness  and  goodness  to  me,  and  that  is  one  reason  I  have 
not  seen  you.  I  know  you  will  be  glad  to  see  me  with  it  in  my 
sleeve.  Yours  very  truly, 

"Tom  M.  Nicholson. 

"Dr.  H.  O.  Thomas. 

"P.  S.— Any  communication  will  reach  me  if  addressed  to 
me  at  the  above,  should  you  desire  to  write." 


54  FAITH-HEALING 

There  is  very  little  to  add  to  this  case.  ...  It  affords, 
however,  a  typical  instance  of  the  way  a  Bethshan  thrives. 
The  surgeon  tells  a  patient  all  but  recovered  to  be  cautious  lest 
the  results  of  months  of  care  be  nullified,  and  "  fools  rush  in  " 
and  tell  him  "to  dispense  with  means  and  all  will  be  well."  In 
this  particular  instance  the  result  was  harmless,  but  it  would 
be  interesting  to  inquire  how  many  poor  deluded  victims  are 
consigned  to  iiTemediable  defects  by  an  ignorant  and  fanatical 
display  which  is  a  satire  upon  our  civilization. 

In  this  country  the  case  that  has  been  most  fre- 
quently quoted  is  narrated  by  the  late  W.  E.  Boardman, 
who  had  the  story  from  Dr.  Cullis  and  gives  it  thus ; 

The  children  were  jumping  off  from  a  bench,  and  my  little 
son  fell  and  broke  both  bones  of  his  arm  below  the  elbow.  My 
brother,  who  is  a  professor  of  surgery  in  the  college  at  Chicago, 
was  here  on  a  visit.  I  asked  him  to  set  and  dress  the  arm.  He 
did  so  ;  put  it  in  splints,  bandages,  and  in  a  sling.  The  dear 
child  was  very  patient,  and  went  about  without  a  murmur  all 
that  day.  The  next  morning  he  came  to  me  and  said,  ''Dear 
papa,  please  take  off  these  things."  *'  Oh,  no,  my  son ;  you  will 
have  to  wear  these  five  or  six  weeks  before  it  will  be  well ! " 
"Why,  papa,  it  is  well."  "Oh,  no,  my  dear  child;  that  is  im- 
possible!" "Why,  papa,  you  believe  in  prayer,  don't  you?" 
"You  know  I  do,  my  son."  "Well,  last  night  when  I  went  to 
bed,  it  hurt  me  very  bad,  and  I  asked  Jesus  to  make  it  well."  I 
did  not  like  to  say  a  word  to  chill  his  faith.  A  happy  thought 
came.  I  said,  "  My  dear  child,  your  uncle  put  the  things  on, 
and  if  they  are  taken  off,  he  must  do  it."  Away  he  went  to  his 
uncle,  who  told  him  he  would  have  to  go  as  he  was  six  or  seven 
weeks,  and  must  be  very  patient ;  and  when  the  little  fellow 
told  him  that  Jesus  had  made  him  well,  he  said,  "  Pooh !  pooh ! 
nonsense!"  and  sent  him  away.  The  next  morning  the  poor 
boy  came  to  me  and  pleaded  with  so  much  sincerity  and  con- 
fidence, that  I  more  than  half  believed,  and  went  to  my  brother 
and  said,  "  Had  you  not  better  undo  his  arm  and  let  him  see  for 
himself?  Then  he  will  be  satisfied.  If  you  do  not,  I  fear, 
though  he  is  very  obedient,  he  may  be  tempted  to  undo  it  him- 
self, and  then  it  may  be  worse  for  him."  My  brother  yielded, 
took  off  the  bandages  and  the  splints,  and  exclaimed,  "It  is 
well,  absolutely  well ! "  and  hastened  to  the  door  to  keep  from 
fainting. 


FAITH-HEALING  55 

Afterward  the  Rev.  Mr.  Gordon  introduced  the  above 
alleged  occurrence  into  his  "  Mystery  of  Healing/' 

This  case  was  thoroughly  investigated  by  Dr.  James 
Henry  Lloyd,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
in  the  "Medical  Record"  for  March  27,  1886,  Dr. 
Lloyd  published  a  letter  from  the  very  child,  who  has 
become  a  physician. 

Dear  Sir  :  The  case  you  cite,  when  robbed  of  all  its  sensa- 
tional surroundings,  is  as  follows:  The  child  was  a  spoiled 
youngster  who  would  have  his  own  way ;  and  when  he  had  a 
green  stick  fracture  of  the  forearm,  and,  after  having  had  it 
bandaged  for  several  days,  concluded  he  would  much  prefer 
going  without  a  splint,  to  please  the  spoiled  child  the  splint  was 
removed,  and  the  arm  carefully  adjusted  in  a  sling.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  the  bone  soon  united,  as  is  customary  in  childi-en, 
and  being  only  partially  broken,  of  course  all  the  sooner.  This 
is  the  miracle. 

Some  nurse  or  crank  or  religious  enthusiast,  ignorant  of 
matters  physiological  and  histological,  evidently  started  the 
story,  and  unfortunately  my  name  — for  I  am  the  party  — is 
being  circulated  in  circles  of  faith-curites,  and  is  given  the  sort 
of  notoriety  I  do  not  crave.     .     .     . 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

Carl  H.  Eeed. 


EVILS  OF  THIS  SUPERSTITION 

Many  well-attested  cases  of  irreparable  damage  to 
religion,  individuals,  and  to  the  peace  of  churches  and 
families  have  been  placed  in  my  hands  or  ascertained 
by  investigation.    From  them  I  select  the  following : 

A  lady,  a  member  of  the  Christian  church,  aged  about  fifty- 
five  years,  had  been  ailing  for  two  or  three  years.  She  fell  and 
bruised  her  side,  and  was  confined  to  her  bed  for  some  weeks. 
She  was  better  for  a  month  perhaps,  and  then  the  disease  de- 
veloped into  internal  abscess  of  the  stomach,  and  she  slowly 
declined  until  her  death,  which  occurred  about  five  months 
afterward.  She  and  her  family  became  very  anxious  for  her 
recovery,  and,  being  very  devout,  their  minds  turned  to  faith- 


56  FAITH-HEALING 

cures  and  faith-healers.  A  month  before  her  death  she  was  in 
correspondence  with  one  of  these  persons.  This  lady  appointed 
an  hour  in  which  to  pray,  and  directed  that  friends  in  the  place 
where  she  resided  should  meet  and  pray  at  that  time.  Her 
pastor  went  and  prayed.  At  the  close  of  this  interview  the  pa- 
tient told  him  she  had  received  just  then  a  great  blessing,  so 
that  now  she  felt  reconciled  to  die,  and  subsequently  said  no- 
thing about  healing,  but  much  about  the  heavenly  rest  which 
she  expected  soon  to  enter.  For  a  long  time  her  nourishment 
had  been,  and  then  was,  taken  entirely  in  the  form  of  injections 
of  beef  tea.  On  a  certain  day  a  layman  who  had  been  healed, 
and  was  himself  a  healer  and  a  prime  mover  in  faith-healing 
conventions,  visited  her  about  noon  and  stayed  until  near  even- 
ing. Ho  told  the  lady  and  her  children  that  the  Lord  had  sent 
him  there  that  she  might  be  instantly  healed,  read  and  ex- 
pounded the  book  of  James,  brought  out  his  phial  of  oil, 
anointed  her  forehead,  knelt  by  her  bedside,  holding  her  hand 
in  his,  and  prayed  very  earnestly  for  her  immediate  cure,  claim- 
ing present  conscious  testimony  by  the  Holy  Spirit  that  the 
cure  was  wrought.  On  rising  from  his  knees,  still  holding  her 
hand,  he  lifted  the  lady  in  bed  to  a  sitting  posture,  and  pro- 
nounced her  cured  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  A  mem- 
ber of  the  family  protested  that  it  was  hazardous  for  her  to  sit 
up  in  that  way,  as  she  had  not  been  able  to  sit  up  for  many 
weeks.  Finally  the  patient  laid  down  exhausted,  and  the  visi- 
tor left,  assuring  the  family  that  '*  in  four  days  mother  would  be 
up  and  about."  Shortly  after  this  (perhaps  an  hour)  intense 
pain  in  the  stomach  began  and  kept  increasing  until  the  agony 
became  unendurable,  so  that  groans  and  screams  of  distress 
were  wrung  from  her.  This  continued  for  twelve  hours,  when 
exhaustion  and  stupor  ensued,  which  lasted  until  her  death, 
the  next  day.  An  autopsy  was  held  by  physicians  who  had 
been  in  attendance,  and  they  reported  a  lesion  of  the  stomach, 
caused,  in  their  opinion,  by  the  exertion  of  the  patient  in  aris- 
ing and  sitting  up  in  bed.  Wlien  our  informant  met  the  visit- 
ing brother  who  had  had  a  revelation  of  the  Spirit  that  the 
patient  was  to  recover,  he  inquired  after  the  case,  and  on  being 
told  that  our  informant  was  about  to  go  to  the  funeral,  he  ex- 
pressed great  surprise  and  said,  '*  It  sometimes  happens  that 
way." 

Can  anything  more  blasphemous  be  imagined  than 
the  presumptuous  claim  of  a  revelation  through  the 


FAITH-HEALING  57 

Holy  Spirit  of  a  matter  of  fact,  and  the  pronoimcing 
the  dying  cured  in  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity? 

Families  have  been  broken  up  by  the  doctrine 
taught  in  some  leading  ''  Faith-Homes  "  that  friends 
who  do  not  believe  this  truth  are  to  be  separated 
from  because  of  the  weakening  effect  of  their  disbe- 
lief upon  faith.  A  heartrending  letter  has  reached 
me  from  a  gentleman  whose  mother  and  sister  are 
now  residing  in  a  faith-institution  of  New  York,  re- 
fusing all  intercourse  with  their  friends,  and  neglect- 
ing obvious  duties  of  life. 

Certain  advocates  of  faith-healing  and  faith-homes 
have  influenced  women  to  leave  their  husbands  and 
parents  and  reside  in  the  homes,  and  have  persuaded 
them  to  give  thousands  of  dollars  for  their  purposes, 
on  the  ground  that  "the  Lord  had  need  of  the  money.'' 
This  system  is  connected  with  every  other  super- 
stition. The  Bible  is  used  as  a  book  of  magic.  Many 
open  it  at  random,  expecting  to  be  guided  by  the 
first  passage  they  see,  as  Peter  was  told  to  open  the 
mouth  of  the  first  fish  that  came  up  and  he  would 
find  in  it  a  piece  of  money.  A  missionary  of  high 
standing  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  was  cured  of 
this  form  of  superstition  by  consulting  the  Bible  on 
an  important  matter  of  Christian  duty,  and  the  passage 
that  met  his  gaze  was,  "  Hell  from  beneath  is  moved 
to  meet  thee  at  thy  coming."  Paganism  can  produce 
nothing  more  superstitious,  though  many  Christians, 
instead  of  "  searching  the  Scriptures,"  still  use  the 
Bible  as  though  it  were  a  divining-rod. 

It  feeds  upon  impressions,  makes  great  use  of 
dreams  and  signs,  and  puts  forth  statements  untrue 
and  pernicious  in  theii*  influence.  A  young  lady 
long  ill  was  visited  by  a  minister  who  prayed  with 
her,  in  great  joy  arose  from  his  knees,  and  said, 
"Jennie,  you  are  sure  to  recover.     Dismiss  all  fear. 


58  FAITH-HEALING 

The  Lord  has  revealed  it  to  meP  Soon  after,  physi- 
cians in  consultation  decided  that  she  had  cancer  of 
the  stomach,  of  which  she  subsequently  died.  He 
who  had  received  the  impression  that  she  would 
recover,  when  met  by  the  pastor  of  the  family,  said, 
^^  Jennie  will  certainly  get  well.  The  Lord  will  raise 
her  up.  He  has  revealed  it  to  me."  Said  the  minis- 
ter, "  She  has  not  the  nervous  disease  she  had  some 
years  ago.  The  physicians  have  decided  that  she  has 
cancer  of  the  stomach."  "  Oh,  well,"  was  the  reply, 
"  if  that  is  the  case,  she  is  sure  to  die." 

A  family  living  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis  had  a  daugh- 
ter who  was  very  ill.  They  were  well  acquainted  with 
one  of  the  prominent  advocates  of  faith-healing  in 
the  East,  who  made  her  case  a  subject  of  prayer,  and 
whose  wife  wrote  her  a  letter  declaring  that  she  would 
certainly  be  cured,  and  the  Lord  had  revealed  it.  The 
letter  arrived  in  St.  Louis  one  day  after  her  death. 

These  are  cases  taken  not  from  the  operations  of 
recognized  fanatics,  but  from  those  of  leading  lights 
in  this  ignis  fatuus  movement. 

It  is  a  means  of  obtaining  money  under  false  pre- 
tenses. Some  who  promulgate  these  views  are  hon- 
est, but  underneath  their  proceedings  runs  a  subtle 
sophistry.  They  establish  institutions  which  they 
call  faith-homes,  declaring  that  they  are  supported 
entirely  by  faith,  and  that  they  use  no  means  to  make 
their  work  known  or  to  persuade  persons  to  contrib- 
ute. Meanwhile  they  advertise  their  work  and  insti- 
tutions in  every  possible  way,  publishing  reports  in 
which,  though  in  many  instances  wanting  in  business 
accuracy,  they  exhibit  the  most  cunning  wisdom  of 
the  children  of  this  world  in  the  conspicuous  publica- 
tion of  letters  such  as  the  following ; 

Dear  Brother  :  The  Lord  told  me  to  send  you  fifty  dollars 
for  your  glorious  work.     I  did  so,  and  have  "been  a  great  deal 


FAITH-HEALING  59 

happier  than  I  ever  was  before ;  and  from  unexpected  quarters 
more  than  three  times  the  amount  has  come  in. 

In  one  of  the  papers  devoted  to  this  subject  this 
letter  recently  appeared  : 

Dear  Brother  :  Please  announce  through  the  ''  Crown  of 
Glory"  that  I  will  sail  for  the  western  coast  of  Africa  to  preach 
a  full  salvation  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to 
heal  whomsoever  the  Lord  will  by  faith,  as  soon  as  the  Lord 
sends  the  balance  of  the  money  to  pay  my  fare.  I  have  re- 
nounced all  rum,  wine,  cider,  tobacco,  beer,  ale,  and  medicines 
--only  Jesus!  Only  Jesus  my  Savior!  I  will  sail  October  10, 
if  the  Lord  sends  the  balance  of  the  money  to  Brother  Heller 
48  Orchard  st.,  Newark,  N.  J.  Yours,  in  Christ,  ' 

S.  B.  Myler. 

A  prominent  English  advocate  of  this  method  of 
raising  money,  who  has  done  an  extraordinary  and 
useful  work,  on  one  of  his  missionary  tours  in  this 
country  explained  his  curious  system  with  so  much 
eloquence  that  the  founders  of  certain  faith-homes 
in  the  United  States  called  upon  the  editors  of  vari- 
ous religious  papers  and  endeavored  to  induce  them 
to  set  forth  that  there  are  institutions  in  this  country 
conducted  on  the  same  principle,  naively  observing 
that  they  did  not  wish  his  presence  and  eloquence 
to  divert  to  England  money  that  should  be  expended 
here.     Yet  they  '^ do  not  use  means" !     But  as  in  the 
case  of  the  supposed  faith-healings,  for  every  success- 
ful instance  there  are  a  large  number  of  unrecorded 
grievous  failures;  and  many  subjects  of  delusion  who 
have  established  faith-homes  to  which  the  public  has 
not  responded  have  suffered  the  agonies  of  death. 
Some  have  starved,  some  have  been  relieved  by  be- 
nevolent Christian  friends,  and  others  have  been  ta- 
ken to  asylums  for  the  insane.    Similar  wrecks  are  to 
be  found  all  through  the  land,  dazzled  and  deceived 
by  the  careers  of  the  few  who  have  succeeded  in  get- 


60  FAITH-HEALING 

ting  their  enterprises  under  way  and  enjoy  a  mo- 
nopoly of  their  limited  method  of  obtaining  revenue. 
Some  who  succeed  are  doubtless  as  sincere  men  and 
women  as  ever  lived.  Others  oscillate  between  knav- 
ery and  unbridled  fanaticism. 

The  horrible  mixture  of  superstition  and  blas- 
phemy to  which  these  views  frequently  lead  is  not 
known  to  all.  I  quote  from  a  paper  published  in 
Newark,  N.  J.,  in  the  interest  of  faith-healing : 

Death. — Three  of  the  richest  men  in  Ocean  Park,  N.  J.,  have 
died.  Faith-healing  has  been  taught  in  the  place,  but  was  re- 
jected by  them,  so  death  came. 

Charleston,  S.  C— A  few  years  ago  the  Holy  Ghost  sent  me 
to  preach  in  that  city.  But  they  rejected  the  Gospel  and  me. 
A  wicked  man  shot  at  me  and  tried  to  kill  me,  but  God  saved 
me  so  that  I  was  not  harmed.  .  .  .  But  I  had  to  leave 
Charleston  and  do  as  the  gi'eat  Head  of  the  Church  said :  .  .  . 
''when  ye  depart  out  of  that  house  or  city,  shake  off  the  dust 
from  your  feet."  Earthquake,  September  1,  1S86 ;  one-half  the 
city  in  ruins.  It  has  a  population  of  about  fifty  thousand  peo- 
ple.    Ye  wicked  cities  in  the  world,  take  warning !    God  lives ! 


SUPPOSED  DIFFICULTIES 

It  has  been  suggested  that  if  faith-healing  can  be 
demonstrated  to  be  subjective,  what  is  called  conver- 
sion can  be  accounted  for  similarly.  If  by  conver- 
sion is  meant  the  cataleptic  condition  which  occurred 
among  Congregationalists  in  the  time  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  certain  Presbyterians  and  Baptists  in  the 
early  part  of  this  century  in  the  South  and  West, 
and  the  early  Methodists,  and  is  still  common  among 
colored  people.  Second  Adventists,  and  tlie  Salvation 
Army,  and  not  wholly  unknown  among  others,  I  ad- 
mit that  such  phenomena  are  of  natural  origin. 

But  if  conversion  is  understood  to  mean  a  recogni- 
tion of  sinfulness,  genuine  repentance,  and  complete 


FAITH-HEALING  61 

trust  in  the  promises  of  God,  accompanied  by  a  con- 
trolling determination  to  live  hereafter  in  obedience 
to  the  law  of  God,  this  is  radically  different.  Such 
an  experience  may  be  sufficiently  intense  to  produce 
tears  of  sorrow  or  joy,  trances,  or  even  lunacy.  But 
neither  the  lunacy,  the  trances,  nor  the  tears  are 
essential  parts  of  the  conversion.  They  are  results 
of  emotional  excitement,  differing  in  individuals  ac- 
cording to  temperament  and  education.  If  these  re- 
sults are  believed  to  have  a  divine  origin — especially 
when  the  susceptible  are  exposed  to  the  contagion  of 
immense  crowds  swayed  by  a  common  impulse  and 
acted  upon  by  oratory— hundreds  may  Succumb  to 
the  epidemic  who  do  not  experience  any  moral  change, 
while  others  who  are  thus  excited  may  at  the  same 
time  be  genuinely  reformed. 

The  inquiry  has  been  made  why  these  principles  do 
not  apply  to  the  miracles  of  Christy  why  I  do  not 
sift  the  evidence  in  the  same  way,  and  explain  the 
facts  on  the  same  grounds.  What,  then,  does  the 
New  Testament  say,  and  is  it  rational  to  believe  it? 

The  first  question  relates  to  the  issue  with  the  faith- 
healers.  If  they  performed  such  works  as  are  recorded 
of  Jesus  Christ,  a  wi-iter  professing  to  believe  in  his 
divinity  would  be  compelled  to  admit  their  claims  to 
supernatural  assistance.  But  the  point  made  against 
them  is  that  they  do  not  perform  works  similar  to 
his. 

The  credibility  of  the  record  concerning  Christ^s 
works  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  raised  by  Chris- 
tians, whether  they  hold  the  superstitions  of  the  faith- 
healers  or  not. 

It  is  conceded  that  probably  no  such  sifting  of  the 
evidence  was  attempted  as  can  be  made  of  what  takes 
place  in  this  scientific  age,  that  there  was  a  predispo- 
sition to  accept  miracles,  and  that  the  ascendancy  of 


62  FAITH-HEALING 

religious  teachers  was  maintained  largely  by  the  be- 
lief of  the  people  in  their  power  to  work  miracles. 
To  affirm,  however,  as  some  do,  that  there  was  no 
investigation,  is  an  exaggeration.  The  Jews,  who 
did  not  believe  Christ,  had  every  motive  to  examine 
the  evidence  as  thoroughly  as  possible.  Still,  we  pos- 
sess only  the  testimony  of  those  who  thought  they 
saw.  If  they  beheld  and  understood,  their  testi- 
mony is  conclusive ;  but  standing  alone  it  would  be 
insufficient. 

Yet  it  is  rational  to  accept  the  record,  although  we 
have  not  the  opportunity  of  seeing  the  miracles  or 
testing  the  evidence  by  scientific  methods.  A  mira- 
cle of  wisdom  may  be  as  convincing  as  one  of  physi- 
cal force.  The  resurrection  from  the  dead  declared 
of  Jesus  Christ  could  not  be  more  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  nature  than  the  conception  of  such  a  life  and 
character  as  his  if  he  never  existed.  His  discourses 
are  as  far  above  human  wisdom  as  his  recorded  works 
transcend  human  power. 

The  prophecies  which  the  Jews  then  held  and  still 
preserve,  taken  in  connection  with  their  character  and 
history  as  a  nation,  afford  a  powerful  presumption 
of  the  truth  of  the  narrative.  In  the  ordinary  course 
of  human  events  the  death  of  Christ,  after  he  had 
made  such  claims,  would  have  destroyed  the  confi- 
dence of  his  apostles  and  scattered  them ;  but  their 
lives  were  transformed  after  his  death.  This  is  inex- 
plicable unless  he  appeared  again  and  sustained  them 
by  miraculous  gifts. 

Of  the  effect  of  a  belief  in  the  teachings  of  Christ  I 
have  had  much  observation.  It  convinces  me  of  their 
truth ;  for  what  reforms  human  nature,  developing  all 
that  is  good,  sustaining  it  in  the  endeavor  to  suppress 
what  is  evil,  supporting  it  in  the  difficulties  of  life, 
and  illuminating  death  with  a  loftier  hope  than  life 


FAITH-HEALING  63 

had  ever  allowed,  furnishes  evidence  of  its  truth,  not 
in  the  scientific  method,  but  in  a  manner  equally  con- 
vincing. Because  the  record  of  miraculous  facts  con- 
cerning Christ  is  inseparably  connected  with  these 
teachings,  it  is  rational  to  believe  it. 

Later  ages  have  had  no  experience  of  the  ways  of 
God  in  making  special  revelations  to  men ;  but  these 
things  were  performed  for  such  a  purpose.  To  allege 
the  experience  of  modern  times  against  the  credibility 
of  extraordinary  events  tJien  appears  no  less  unphilo- 
sophical  than  to  bring  forward  that  record  in  favor 
of  miracles  now. 

Faraday,  ^'  the  father  of  modern  experimental  chem- 
istry," began  his  celebrated  lecture  on  the  Education 
of  the  Judgment  thus : 

Before  entering  upon  the  subject,  I  must  make  one  distinc- 
tion, which,  however  it  may  appear  to  others,  is  to  me  of  the 
utmost  importance.  High  as  man  is  placed  above  the  crea- 
tures around  him,  there  is  a  higher  and  far  more  exalted  posi- 
tion within  his  view;  and  the  ways  are  infinite  in  which  he 
occupies  his  thoughts  about  the  fears  or  hopes  or  expectations 
of  a  future  life.  I  believe  that  the  truth  of  that  future  cannot 
be  brought  to  his  knowledge  by  any  exertion  of  his  mental 
powers,  however  exalted  they  may  be ;  that  it  is  made  known 
to  him  by  other  teaching  than  his  own,  and  is  received  through 
simple  belief  of  the  testimony  given.  Let  no  one  suppose  for  a 
moment  that  the  self-education  I  am  about  to  commend  in  re- 
spect of  the  things  of  this  life  extends  to  any  considerations  of 
the  hope  set  before  us,  as  if  man  by  reasoning  could  find  out 
God.  It  would  be  improper  here  to  enter  upon  this  subject  fur- 
ther than  to  claim  an  absolute  distinction  between  religious 
and  ordinary  belief.  I  shall  be  reproached  with  the  weakness 
of  refusing  to  apply  those  mental  operations  which  I  think  good 
in  respect  of  high  things  to  the  very  highest.  I  am  content  to 
bear  the  reproach.  Yet,  even  in  earthly  matters,  I  believe  that 
the  invisible  things  of  him  from  tlie  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made, 
even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead;  and  I  have  never  seen 
anything  incompatible  between  those  things  of  man  which  can 


64  FAITH-HEALING 

bo  known  by  the  spirit  of  man  which  is  within  him,  and  those 
higher  things  concerning  his  future  which  he  cannot  know  by 
that  spirit. 

I  would  not  shield  myself  behind  a  great  name 
from  the  charge  of  inconsistency,  but  have  brought 
forward  this  passage  because  it  states,  what  the  life 
of  Faraday  illustrated ; — the  compatibility  of  intense 
devotion  to  the  scientific  method  in  its  proper  sphere, 
with  a  full  recognition  of  its  limitations,  of  the  value 
of  moral  evidence,  and  of  the  difference  between 
grounds  of  belief  in  nature  and  revelation. 


^^ CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND  ^^MIND  CURE" 


THIRTY  years  ago  the  phrases  Christian  Science 
and  Mind  Cure,  in  the  sense  now  attached  to 
them,  were  unknown ;  to-day  in  the  press,  in  conver- 
sation, in  literature,  and  especially  in  discussions  re- 
lating to  health  and  disease,  and  to  the  more  occult 
phenomena  of  human  nature,  they  frequently  occur. 
To  many  they  have  no  definite  meaning,  and  long  con- 
versations are  carried  on  concerning  them  in  which 
the  most  diverse  views  are  maintained,  ending  in  con- 
fusion and  contradiction,  because  those  who  converse 
have  not  a  uniform  conception  of  the  signification  of 
the  terms.  Some  declare  Christian  Science  and  Mind 
Cure  to  be  the  same;  others  stoutly  deny  this,  and 
seek  to  establish  a  radical  distinction.  Some  repre- 
sent Christian  Science  as  a  great  advance  npon  ordi- 
nary Christianity ;  others  denounce  it  as  but  refined 
Pantheism ;  while  many  more  brand  both  Christian 
Science  and  Mind  Cure  as  delusion,  a  reaction  from 
the  uncompromising  materialism  of  the  age. 

Mrs.  Mary  Baker  Glover  Eddy,  President  of  the 
Massachusetts  Metaphysical  College,  claims  to  have 
been  the  first  to  use  the  phrase  "Christian  Science." 

It  was  in  Massachusetts,  in  the  year  1866,  that  I  discovered 
the  Science  of  Metaphysical  Healing,  which  I  afterwards  named 
Christian  Science.    The  discovery  came  to  pass  m  this  way. 


GG         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND  "MIND  CURE" 

During  twenty  years  prior  to  my  discovery  I  had  been  trying  to 
trace  all  physical  effects  to  a  mental  cause ;  and  in  January  of 
18GG  I  gained  the  scientific  certainty  that  all  causation  was 
Mind,  and  every  effect  a  mental  phenomenon. 


Mrs.  Eddy  further  states  that  about  the  year  1862 
her  health  was  failing  rapidly,  and  she  "  employed  a 
distinguished  mesmerist,  Mr.  P.  P.  Quimby  —  a  sen- 
sible, elderly  gentleman,  with  some  advanced  views 
about  healing.  .  .  .  There  were  no  Metaphysical  Heal- 
ers then.  The  Science  of  Mental  Healing  had  not 
been  discovered.'^ 

Whether  or  not  Mrs.  Eddy  is  indebted  for  her  ideas 
to  Mr.  Quimby  has  since  been  the  subject  of  heated 
discussion  j  for  the  short  time  which  has  elapsed  since 
the  "discovery ''has  been  long  enough  for  the  develop- 
ment of  several  rival  schools,  which  have  engendered 
toward  one  another  as  much  intensity  of  feeling  as 
the  odium  theologicum  and  odium  medicum  combined. 
Speaking  of  her  rivals,  Mrs.  Eddy  modestly  observes: 
"  Some  silly  publications,  whose  only  correct  or  salient 
points  are  borrowed,  without  credit,  from '  Science  and 
Health,'  would  set  the  world  right  on  Metaphysical 
Healing,  like  children  thrumming  a  piano  and  pre- 
tending to  teach  music  or  criticise  Mozart." 

The  history  of  the  discovery  is  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  be  given.  "  The  cowardly  claim  that  I  am 
not  the  originator  of  my  own  writings,  but  that  one 
P.  P.  Quimby  is,  has  been  legally  met  and  punished. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Quimby  died  in  1865,  and  my  first  knowledge 
of  Christian  Science,  or  Metaphysical  Healing,  was 
gained  in  1866.  .  .  .  When  he  doctored  me  I  was  ig- 
norant of  the  nature  of  mesmerism,  but  subsequent 
knowledge  has  convinced  me  that  he  practiced  it." 
Mrs.  Eddy  says  that  after  having  been  for  many  years 
a  sufferer  from  chronic  diseases,  she  met  with  an  acci- 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND  ''MIND  CURE"        G7 

dent  which  produced,  according  to  physicians,  a  fatal 
injury.  They  gave  her  up  to  die,  and  declared  that 
she  would  not  live  till  noon.  She  replied  that  she 
would  be  well  at  that  time.  Her  pastor  called  after 
service  and  found  her  busy  about  the  house.  One  of 
her  assistants  says  that  "while  she  knew  that  she  was 
healed  by  the  direct  and  gracious  exercise  of  the  di- 
vine power,  she  was  indisposed  to  make  an  old-time 
miracle  of  it." 

After  three  years'  meditation  she  concluded  that 
her  recovery  was  in  accordance  with  general  spiritual 
laws,  capable  of  being  known  and  clearly  stated.  She 
then  began  to  teach  and  write ;  though  prior  to  the 
expiration  of  the  three  years,  namely,  in  1867,  she 
taught  a  purely  metaphysical  system  of  healing  to,  as 
she  says,  "the  very  first  student  who  was  ever  so  in- 
structed since  the  days  of  the  Apostles  and  the  primi- 
tive Church.'^  Her  essays  were  circulated  among  her 
students  privately.  In  1870  she  copyrighted  her  first 
pamphlet,  but  did  not  publish  it  till  six  years  after- 
ward. 

In  1876  she  organized  the  Christian  Scientist  Asso- 
ciation, and  in  1879,  at  a  meeting  of  that  association, 
she  organized  a  Church,  "a  Mind  Healing  Church, 
without  creeds,  called  the  Church  of  Christ.''  To  the 
pastorate  of  this  she  accepted  a  call,  and  was  ordained 
in  Boston,  1881.  The  college  flourishes,  the  church 
has  an  assistant  pastor,  and  Mrs.  Eddy  receives  so 
much  patronage  as  a  teacher  as  to  compel  the  publi- 
cation of  the  following: 

The  authoress  takes  no  patients,  and  has  no  time  for  medical 
consultation. 

Practitioners,  who  of  course  are  not  obliged  to 
waste  much  time  upon  such  sordid  things  as  anat- 


68         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

omy,  physiology,  or  materia  medica,  are  prepared 
with  unusual  rapidity.  The  primary  class  in  Chris- 
tian Science  Mind  Healing  includes  twelve  lessons. 
In  the  first  week  six  of  these  are  given.  The  term 
continues  only  about  three  weeks,  and  the  charge  for 
tuition  is  $300.  The  normal  class  requires  six  lec- 
tures. Graduates  from  the  primary  class  are  advised 
to  practise  at  least  one  year  before  entering  this  class, 
and  for  these  six  lectures  they  must  pay  $200.  There 
is  also  a  class  of  Metaphysical  Obstetrics  which  re- 
quires only  six  lectures,  for  which  $100  must  be  paid. 
In  addition  to  these  there  is  a  class  in  Theology,  in- 
cluding six  lectures  on  the  Scriptures,  for  which 
$200  must  be  paid.  The  largest  discount  to  an  indi- 
gent student  is  $100  on  the  first  course.  Husbands 
and  wives,  if  they  enter  together  the  primary  class, 
may  pay  $300  j  but,  entering  at  different  times,  must 
pay  the  regular  price,  and  must  do  that  for  all  other 
courses,  payment  being  made  strictly  in  advance.  It 
is  obvious  therefore,  that  the  benefits  of  the  Mind 
Cure  cannot  be  applied  to  commercial  transactioDs; 
and  that  800  material  dollars,  exclusive  of  board,  are 
required  to  master  the  Science  of  Metaphysical  Heal- 
ing,— unless  one  were  to  say  that  national  bank  notes 
are  merely  material  symbols  of  an  immaterial  and 
impalpable  essence. 

Considering  the  short  time  that  has  elapsed  since 
the  '^  discovery,"  the  number  of  practitioners,  as  ad- 
vertised in  one  of  their  magazines,  is  very  large. 
Sixty-six  are  women,  and  twenty-nine  men;  and  all 
but  five  of  the  men  appear  to  be  associated  with  their 
wives  in  the  practice  of  the  profession.  There  are 
also  Christian  Science  institutes  and  colleges  adver- 
tised: two  in  New  York,  four  in  Chicago,  one  in 
Milwaukee,  one  in  Brooklyn,  and  one  in  Colorado. 
The  other  institutions  do  not  charge  so  large  a  sum 


'^  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"         69 

as  Mrs.  Eddy.  Some  of  them  agree  to  give  sufficient 
instruction  for  $25  to  justify  the  would-be  practitioner 
in  beginning.  Others  communicate  all  they  know, 
with  the  privilege  of  meeting  for  conversation  once  a 
month  for  a  year,  on  payment  of  $100.  They  give 
diplomas,  valued  according  to  the  standing  of  the 
respective  schools.  Impostors  have  arisen,  so  that 
Mrs.  Eddy  has  notified  the  public  that  all  persons 
claiming  to  have  been  her  pupils,  who  cannot  show 
diplomas  legally  certifying  to  that  effect,  are  pre- 
ferring false  claims. 


THEORY 

By  a  careful  examination  of  the  works  of  those 
who  have  written  upon  this  subject,  including  Evans, 
Grimke,  Stuart,  Arens,  Taylor,  Baldwin,  Hazzard, 
Nichols,  Marston,  etc.,  and  by  conversation  with  Men- 
tal Healers,  Christian  Scientists,  and  their  patients, 
I  have  ascertained  that  most  of  them  concur  with 
Mrs.  Eddy  in  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  sys- 
tem, and  that  where  they  diverge  it  is  upon  minor 
points. 

Her  hypothesis  is  that  "  the  only  realities  are  the 
Divine  Mind  and  its  ideas.  .  .  .  That  erring  mortal 
views,  misnamed  mitid,  produce  all  the  organic  and 
animal  action  of  the  mortal  body.  .  .  .  Rightly  under- 
stood, instead  of  possessing  sentient  matter,  we  have 
sensationless  bodies.  .  .  .  Whence  came  to  me  this 
conviction  in  antagonism  to  the  testimony  of  the 
human  senses  *?  From  the  self-evident  fact  that  mat- 
ter has  no  sensation ;  from  the  common  human  expe- 
rience of  the  falsity  of  all  material  things;  from  the 
obvious  fact  that  mortal  mind  is  what  suffers,  feels, 
sees  ;  since  matter  cannot  suffer." 


70        "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

The  method  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  reasoning  may  be  seen 
in  the  following  extracts : 

The  ineradicable  belief  that  pain  is  located  in  a  limb  which 
has  been  removed,  when  really  the  sensation  is  believed  to  be 
in  the  nerves,  is  an  added  proof  of  the  unreliability  of  physical 
testimony.  .  .  .  Electricity  is  not  a  vital  fluid,  but  an  element 
of  mortal  mind, — the  thought-essence  that  forms  the  link  be- 
tween what  is  termed  matter  and  mortal  mind.  Both  are  differ- 
ent strata  of  human  belief.  The  grosser  substratum  is  named 
matter.  The  more  ethereal  is  called  human  mind,  which  is  the 
nearer  counterfeit  of  the  Immortal  Mind,  and  hence  the  more 
accountable  and  sinful  belief .  .  .  .  You  say,  "  Toil  fatigues  me." 
But  what  is  this  you  or  me  f  Is  it  muscle  or  mind  ?  Which  one  is 
tired  and  so  speaks  ?  Without  mind,  could  the  muscles  be  tired  ? 
Do  the  muscles  talk,  or  do  you  talk  for  them  ?  Matter  is  non- 
intelligent.  Mortal  mind  does  the  talking,  and  that  which  affirms 
it  to  be  tired  first  made  it  so. 


Having  adopted  a  theory,  she  does  not  shrink  from 
its  logical  sequences : 

You  would  not  say  that  a  wheel  is  fatigued ;  and  yet,  the 
body  is  just  as  material  as  the  wheel.  Setting  aside  what  the 
human  mind  says  of  the  body,  it  would  never  be  weary  any  more 
than  the  inanimate  wheel.  Understanding  this  great  fact  rests 
you  more  than  hours  of  repose. 


Her  most  frequently  repeated  assertions  are  such 
as  these : 

God  is  supreme ;  is  mind ;  is  principle,  not  person ;  includes 
all  and  is  reflected  by  all  that  is  real  and  eternal ;  is  Spirit,  and 
Spirit  is  infinite ;  is  the  only  substance  ;  is  the  only  life.  Man 
was  and  is  the  idea  of  God ;  therefore  mind  can  never  be  in  man. 
Divine  Science  shows  that  matter  and  mortal  body  are  the  illu- 
sions of  human  belief,  which  seem  to  appear  and  disappear  to 
mortal  sense  alone.  When  this  belief  changes,  as  in  dreams,  the 
material  body  changes  with  it,  going  wherever  we  wish,  and  be- 
coming whatsoever  belief  may  decree.   Human  mortality  proves 


*' CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"         71 

that  error  has  been  engrafted  into  both  the  dreams  and  conclu- 
sions of  material  and  mortal  humanity.  Besiege  sickness  and 
death  with  these  principles,  and  all  will  disappear. 


As  these  doctrines  are  unquestionably  in  substance 
such  as  have  been  held  by  certain  metaphysicians  i^ 
past  ages,  Mrs.  Eddy  feels  called  upon  to  answer 
those  who  make  that  charge: 

Those  who  formerly  sneered  at  it  as  foolish  and  eccen- 
tric now  declare  Bishop  Berkeley,  David  Hume,  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  certain  German  philosophers,  or  some  unlearned  mes- 
merist, to  have  been  the  real  originators  of  Mind  Healing. 
Emerson's  ethics  are  models  of  their  kind ;  but  even  that  good 
man  and  genial  philosopher  partially  lost  his  mental  faculties 
before  his  death,  showing  that  he  did  not  understand  the  Science 
of  Mind  Healing,  as  elaborated  in  my  "Science  and  Health"; 
nor  did  he  pretend  to  do  so. 

Sickness,  then,  is  a  dream  of  falsity,  to  be  antag- 
onized by  the  metaphysical  healer,  mentally,  and 
audibly  when  it  may  be  necessary. 

Mrs.  Eddy's  theories  are  her  religion,  and  her  Sci- 
ence—  so  called — is  based  upon  the  religious  prin- 
ciples which  she  holds. 

One  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  former  students,  named  Arens, 
for  whom  she  entertains  a  strong  spiritual  antipathy, 
has  published  a  volume  called  "Old  Theology  in  its 
Application  to  the  Healing  of  the  Sick.''  In  the  in- 
troduction he  writes : 

It  will  be  unnecessary  to  ask  the  reader  for  charitable  criti- 
cism when  I  say  that  I  make  no  claims  to  being  a  ripe  scholar, 
and  that  my  knowledge  of  the  English  language  is  very  imper- 
fect. The  truths  set  forth  in  this  volume  have  been  expressed 
as  clearly  as  possible,  considering  the  disadvantages  under 
which  I  have  labored,  one  of  which  is  the  poverty  of  words 
in  the  English  language  to  express  spiritual  thoughts.  It  has 
been  found  necessary  to  employ  close  punctuation,  and  in  some 


72         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CUEE" 

instances  to  disregard  some  rules  of  grammar  and  rhetoric,  in 
order  to  give  the  requisite  shade  of  thought. 

The  mental  difficulty  in  understanding  him  arises 
from  his  incompetency  as  a  writer.  His  reflection 
upon  the  poverty  of  the  English  language  is  another 
form  of  confessing  his  ignorance  of  it ;  and  his  disre- 
gard of  the  rules  of  grammar  and  rhetoric  does  not 
result  from  his  difficulty  in  giving  shades  of  thought, 
but  from  his  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  language.  Mrs. 
Eddy  thus  described  him  in  1883 : 

When  he  entered  the  class  of  my  husband,  the  late  Asa  G. 
Eddy,  in  1879,  he  had  no  knowledge  whatever,  and  claimed 
none,  as  can  be  shown  under  his  own  signature,  of  Metaphysics 
or  Christian  Science.  .  .  .  While  teaching  him  my  system  of 
Mental  Healing,  his  motives  and  aims  and  the  general  constitu- 
tion of  his  mind  were  found  so  remote  from  the  requirements  of 
Christian  Science,  that  his  teacher  despaired  of  imparting  to  him 
a  due  understanding  of  the  subject.  Perhaps  it  was  to  meet  this 
great  want  without  remedying  it,  and  cover  his  lack  of  learn- 
ing, that  he  committed  to  memory  many  paragraphs  from  my 
works,  and  is  in  the  habit  of  repeating  them  in  his  attempts  to 
lecture.  He,  who  now  proclaims  himself  a  professor  in  the  sol- 
emn department  that  he  assumes  as  a  jay  in  borrowed  plumes, 
was  the  most  ignorant  and  empty-minded  scholar  I  ever  remem- 
ber of  examining. 

That  his  earlier  work  consists  largely  of  passages 
taken  from  Mrs.  Eddy's  writings,  and  that  it  is  as  a 
whole  in  every  respect  inferior  to  them,  is  the  simple 
statement  of  a  fact.  He  has,  however,  acquired  con- 
siderable reputation,  and  has  a  constituency.  Before 
advancing  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  system, 
he  attempts  to  show  the  inconsistencies  of  medical 
science  in  the  following  passage : 

Materia  medica  teaches  that  mercury  cures,  also  that  mer- 
cury kills ;  that  ipecac  causes  vomiting,  and  that  an  overdose 


*' CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"        73 

checks  it,  etc. ;  these  are  contradictions  in  themselves.  A  rule 
that  can  be  contradicted  is  not  demonstrable,  and  therefore  not 
truth.  K  one  and  one  made  two  only  occasionally,  and  at  other 
times  made  three  or  more,  it  would  be  no  fact  or  rule,  because 
not  demonstrable,  and  no  dependence  could  be  placed  upon  it. 
If  from  a  science  (truth)  it  is  found  that  mercury  cures,  it  would 
be  found  that  the  more  of  that  so-called  necessary  quality  taken 
into  the  system,  the  better  it  would  be  for  the  patient;  such 
would  be  the  result  from  a  perfect  rule  or  from  truth. 

Here  is  an  example  of  his  style : 

Suppose  I  should  be  walking  past  a  house,  and  a  pane  of  glass 
should  fall  from  an  upper  window  cutting  me  and  causing  my 
death ;  the  glass  was  made  and  placed  by  life,  and  life  broke  it 
and  caused  it  to  fall.  My  life  brought  me  here  from  Prussia 
and  carried  me  by  the  house  at  the  time  that  happened ;  there- 
fore life  was  the  cause  of  my  death,  and,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  is  the  cause  of  all  action. 

From  this  profound  (1)  reasoning  he  concludes : 

If  life  is  the  cause  of  all  action  it  must  be  the  cause  of  sick- 
ness. .  .  .  Thought  is  the  first  product  of  life,  and  as  the 
thought  is  so  will  the  action  be.  Life  cannot  act  contrary  to 
the  thoughts  which  are  become  beliefs  or  opinions,  that  is, 
which  have  taken  root  or  are  become  attached  to  it,  unless  it 
acts  unconsciously. 

Mrs.  Eddy  sued  this  Dr.  Arens  for  infringing  her 
copyright,  and  obtained  judgment  against  him,  so 
that  he  was  compelled  to  destroy  a  large  edition  of 
one  of  his  pamphlets. 

Dr.  Arens  established  a  university  in  the  city  of 
Boston,  incorporated  five  or  six  years,  called  the 
"University  of  the  Science  of  Spirit."  It  confers  the 
following  degrees:  "F.  D.,"  Defender  of  the  Faith, 
and  "  S.  S.  D.,"  Doctor  of  the  Science  of  Spirit.^  The 
charge  for  instruction  in  the  general  course  is  one 
hundred  dollars.    These  courses  are  somewhat  pre- 


74         ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

tentious.  The  first  treats  the  "Scientific  Basis  of 
Theology,"  "the  Difference  between  God  and  the  Uni- 
verse," etc.,  and,  proceeding  through  twenty-one  theo- 
logical points,  concludes  by  setting  forth  "the  First 
Step  in  Immortality,"  and  "How  to  Destroy  Sick- 
ness." The  second  course  discusses  "Theos,  Chaos, 
and  Cosmos";  gives  a  theory  of  the  creation  of  the 
universe  down  to  the  creation  of  the  "  first  material 
human  body,"  which  it  treats  under  "its  outline  and 
quality ;  the  necessity  for  respiration ;  the  first  con- 
sciousness of  existence;  the  separation  of  male  and 
female ;  the  origin  of  self-will  and  its  results."  And 
finally,  "the  beginning  of  sickness  and  trouble." 

Dr.  Marston  treats  "God,  Man,  Matter,  Disease,  Sin, 
and  Death,  Healing,  Treatment,  and  Universal  Truth." 
In  his  book  he  states  that  "the  mental  healer  does  not 
care  by  what  medical  name  the  distress  is  known ;  it 
maybe  nervousness,  dyspepsia,  asthma, fever, — words 
all  alike  to  him,  since  the  effects  they  denote  are  sim- 
ply reflections  or  registers  of  wrong  thinking."  In 
illustrating  this  he  says : 

A  case  maybe  cited  to  illustrate  the  meaning :  A  middle-aged 
man  who  has  suffered  many  years  with  chronic  rheumatism, 
until  it  is  torture  for  him  to  move,  has  also  an  excitable  tem- 
per, a  despotic  will,  and  is  so  intolerant  that  he  cannot  abide 
opposition,  but  flies  into  a  towering  rage  if  he  is  crossed.  He 
has  had  many  physicians  who  ascribe  the  painful  inflammation 
of  his  joints  to  an  improper  secretion  of  uric  acid  ;  and  his  ner- 
vousness and  irritability  are  easily  accounted  for  by  the  pro- 
longed suffering  he  has  endured.  This  case  presents  the  same 
conditions  to  the  mental  healer,  but  his  conclusions  are  different. 
To  him  the  bodily  trouble  is  a  reflection  or  effect  of  lack  of  men- 
tal ease ;  and  the  unamiable  nature  results  from  a  dominant 
feeling  tliat  other  people  are  enemies  seeking  to  oppose  the  poor 
man's  wishes  and  thwart  his  plans.  In  treating  the  case,  the 
doctor  addresses  remedies  to  the  disturbed  secretions  which 
are  an  effect,  while  the  mental  healer  directs  his  to  the  primary 
cause,  which  is  fear. 


'' CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"        75 

His  cure  is  reduced  to  its  simplest  form  as  follows : 
"The  senses  say  matter  can  suffer  pain;  God  says 
matter  is  insensible.  The  senses  declare  a  man  sick; 
God  says  the  real  man  knows  nothing  of  disease." 
Under  the  head  of  Sin  and  Death  he  says :  "  Scientific 
Christianity  does  not  recognize  the  definition  of  the- 
ology, but  holds  that,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  no 
sin."  ^  He  finally  describes  the  cure  thus :  *^A  mental 
cure  is  the  discovery  made  by  a  sick  person  that  he 
is  well." 

W.  F.  Evans,  a  voluminous  writer,  formerly  an 
evangelical  minister,  then  a  Swedenborgian,  and 
lately  a  mental  healer,  remarks: 

The  process  is  essentially  a  spiritual  work ;  it  is  held  that 
there  is  a  part  of  us  that  is  never  sicJc,  and  this  part  is  mentally 
worked  upon  so  as  to  control  the  sick  person^  consciousness,  this 
destroys  the  sickness,  for  mind  cures  matter.  A  disciple  of  tMs 
school  is  sick  —  no,  he  is  not  sick,  for  that  is  something  which 
he  will  not  admit ;  he  has  a  belief  that  he  is  sick ;  he  then  says 
mentally  to  the  rebellious  body,  ' '  What  are  you  ?  You  have  no 
power  over  me ;  you  are  merely  the  covering  given  to  me  for 
present  purposes ;  it  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  I  am  sick ;  I 
recognize  the  great  truth  that  I  myself,  my  individuality,  my 
personality,  my  mind,  cannot  be  sick,  for  it  is  immortal,  made 
in  the  image  of  God ;  when  I  recognize  the  existence  of  that 
truth  there  is  no  room  left  for  the  existence  of  error ;  two  things 
cannot  occupy  one  and  the  same  place  ;  error  cannot  exist  in  the 
same  place  with  truth,  therefore  error  is  not  in  existence ;  hence 
I  am  not  sick." 

Mrs.  Grimk6,  author  of  "Personified  Unthinkables," 
says : 

Now,  rheumatism  or  pneumonia,  etc.,  are  verbal  expressions 
for  unthinkables,  just  as  2  +  2  =  5  is  a  verbal  expression  for  a 
lie.  By  means  of  the  picturing  faculty,  both  of  the  individual 
and  of  those  about  him,  the  outward  manifestation  of  the  un- 
thinkable will  express  itself  upon  the  body  just  as  surely  as  the 
magic-lantern  will  reflect  the  picture  inserted  between  the  light 


7G         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   *'MIND   CUEE" 

and  the  lenses  when  the  proper  conditions  are  met.  .  .  . 
The  problem  of  Health,  then,  would  be  how  to  cultivate  and 
keep  clean  and  healthy  pictures  in  the  mind.  Health  would 
then  be  an  essential  part  of  the  ego.  Man  would  be  a  strict 
unity,  not  a  trinity,  of  Intellect,  Body,  and  Morals,  and  the  ab- 
solutely necessary  postulates  of  this  Unity  would  be  Infinite 
Mind,  Freedom,  and  Eternal  Life. 

There  are  those  who  in  their  own  opinion  have 
reached  a  greater  elevation  than  either  the  Christian 
Scientists  or  the  Mind  Curers,  ^'  and  profess  to  heal 
by  the  transfer  of  psychic  energy."  The  chief  prac- 
titioner in  this  sphere  informed  me  that  the  rela- 
tive rank  of  these  sciences  is,  1.  The  lower  grade — 
the  mere  physical  system.  2.  What  is  called  animal 
magnetism.  3.  The  mind  cnre.  4.  The  spirits  (when 
they  are  good  spirits).  5.  Including  all  that  is  good 
in  the  others,  he  places  in  the  supernal.  He  claimed 
that  there  has  been  in  all  ages  an  order  called  the 
Inspirati,  who  practised  this  method,  and  offered  to 
make  me  a  Knight  of  that  order. 

This  will  suffice  until  it  fails  to  attract  patients, 
when,  no  doubt,  a  sixth  order,  that  of  the  Empyrean, 
will  be  devised. 

Some  of  the  Christian  Scientists  have  attempted  to 
construct  a  technical  language,  which,  when  trans- 
lated, shows  that  they  attach  as  much  importance  to 
learned  terms  as  does  any  form  of  the  material  science 
that  they  denounce.  "Gnosis.— The  'Spiritual  Un- 
derstanding,^ the  immediate  Intuition.'  ViR.— 
The  God  in  Man.  Harmatia.  —  Off-the-trackness. 
Homo.— The  Creature  of  God.  Ego.— The  Homo  as 
he  is.  Nemo.—  The  Homo  as  he  sees  himself.  Enthe- 
ASM.— Direct  Communication  with  God.  Nihiloid.— 
Like  unto  nothing,  the  proper  name  of  disease,  disor- 
der, discomfort.  YoGA.— Concentration  of  Thought. 
Daivia.- Subjugation  of  Sense.     Karma.  — Law  of 


''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"        77 

Cause  and  Effect.  Maya.— Illusion,  'Mortal  Mind/ 
False  Beliefs. —  Chaos,  The  Habitat  of  Humbug." 

Most  of  these  terms  appear  to  have  had  an  oriental 
origin,  and  are  as  valuable  in  affecting  the  ordinary 
mind  as  chloride  of  sodium  for  salt,  capsicum  for 
pepper,  and  HoO  for  water.  They  serve  also  to  make 
it  appear  that  the  Science  is  difficult,  and  that  large 
fees  for  instruction  are  reasonable. 

They  make  use  of  certain  forms  of  expression  which 
savor  more  strongly  of  cant  than  any  phrases  that 
have  ever  been  used  by  religious  sects.  They  use  the 
word  "belief"  in  speaking  of  a  disease,  or  even  of  a 
defect  of  character.  A  lady,  talking  with  a  practi- 
tioner of  this  school  of  a  mutual  acquaintance,  said 
she  thought  her  selfish.  "Yes,"  replied  the  Christian 
Scientist,  "I  believe  she  has  a  strong  belief  in  sel- 
fishness." 

To  a  patient  who  had  every  symptom  of  a  torpid 
liver  another  healer  of  the  school  said,  "It  is  unfor- 
tunate that  you  have  such  a  belief  in  bile."  To  which 
the  astonished  patient,  new  to  the  Science,  replied  that 
he  thought  any  one  would  have  the  same  belief  who 
had  the  same  kind  of  liver. 


PRACTICE 

The  manner  in  which  Christian  Science  antagonizes 
dreams  of  falsity  is  interesting,  whether  the  theories 
be  accepted  or  not. 

First — Both  the  patient  and  the  metaphysical 
healer  must  be  taught  that 

Anatomy,  Physiology,  Treatises  on  Health,  sustained  by  what 
is  termed  material  law,  are  the  husbandmen  of  sickness  and 
disease.    It  is  proverbial  that  as  long  as  you  read  medical  works 


78         "CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND   CURE" 

you  will  be  sick.  .  .  .  Clairvoyants  and  medical  charlatans 
are  the  prolific  sources  of  sickness.  .  .  .  They  first  help  to 
form  the  image  of  illness  in  mortal  minds,  by  telling  patients 
that  they  have  a  disease ;  and  then  they  go  to  work  to  destroy 
that  disease.  They  unweave  their  own  webs.  .  .  .  When 
^here  were  fewer  doctors,  and  less  thought  was  given  to  sani- 
tary subjects,  there  were  better  constitutions  and  less  disease. 

Second. — Diet  is  a  matter  of  no  importance. 

We  are  told  that  the  simple  food  our  forefathers  ate  assisted 
to  make  them  healthy;  but  that  is  a  mistake.  Their  diet  would 
not  cure  dyspepsia  at  this  period.  With  rules  of  health  in  the 
head,  and  the  most  digestible  food  in  the  stomach,  there  would 
still  b©  dyspeptics. 

Third. — Exercise  is  of  no  importance. 

Because  the  muscles  of  the  blacksmith's  arm  are  strongly  de- 
veloped, it  does  not  follow  that  exercise  did  it,  or  that  an  arm 
less  used  must  be  fragile.  If  matter  were  the  cause  of  action, 
and  muscles,  without  the  cooperation  of  mortal  mind,  could  lift 
the  hammer  and  smite  the  nail,  it  might  be  thought  true  that 
hammering  enlarges  the  muscles.  But  the  trip-hammer  is  not 
increased  in  size  by  exercise.  Why  not,  since  muscles  are  as 
material  as  wood  and  iron? 

Fourth. — A  proper  view  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  publications 
is,  however,  of  great  importance. 

My  publications  alone  heal  more  sickness  than  an  unconsci- 
entious student  can  begin  to  reach.  If  patients  seem  the  worse 
for  reading  my  book,  this  change  may  either  arise  from  the 
frightened  mind  of  the  physician,  or  mark  the  crisis  of  the  dis- 
ease.    Perseverance  in  its  perusal  would  heal  them  completely. 

Fifth. 

Never  tell  the  sick  they  have  more  courage  than  strength. 
Tell  them  rather  that  their  strength  is  in  proportion  to  their 
courage.  .  .  .  Instruct  the  sick  that  they  are  not  helpless 
victims;  but  that,  if  they  only  know  how,  they  can  resist  dis- 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"        79 

ease  and  ward  it  off,  just  as  positively  as  they  can  a  temptation 
to  sin. 

Sixth. — In  preparing  to  treat  patients,  the  healer 
must  strengthen  and  steady  his  own  mind. 

Be  firm  in  your  understanding  that  Mind  governs  the  body. 
Have  no  foolish  fears  that  matter  governs,  and  can  ache,  swell, 
and  be  inflamed  from  a  law  of  its  own ;  when  it  is  self-evident 
that  matter  can  have  no  pain  or  inflammation.  .  .  .If  you 
believe  in  inflamed  or  weak  nerves,  you  are  liable  to  an  attack 
from  that  source.  You  will  call  it  neuralgia,  but  I  call  it  Illu- 
sion. .  .  .  When  treating  the  sick,  first  make  your  mental 
plea  in  behalf  of  harmony,  .  .  .  then  realize  the  absence 
of  disease.  .  .  .  Use  such  powerful  eloquence  as  a  Con- 
gressman would  employ  to  defeat  the  passage  of  an  inhuman 
law. 

Seventh. — You  are  fortunate  if  your  patient  knows 
little  or  nothing,  for  "a  patient  thoroughly  booked  in 
medical  theories  has  less  sense  of  the  divine  power, 
and  is  more  difficult  to  heal  through  Mind,  than  an 
aboriginal  Indian  who  never  bowed  the  knee  to  the 
Baal  of  civilization." 

EightJi. — See  that  the  "minds  which  surround  your 
patient  do  not  act  against  your  influence  by  continu- 
ally expressing  such  opinions  as  may  alarm  or  dis- 
courage. .  .  .  You  should  seek  to  be  alone  with 
the  sick  while  treating  them." 

Ninth. — Bathing  and  rubbing  are  of  no  use. 

Bathing  and  rubbing  to  alter  the  secretions,  or  remove  un- 
healthy exhalations  from  the  cuticle,  receive  a  useful  rebuke 
from  Christian  Healing.  .  .  .  John  Quincy  Adams  presents 
an  instance  of  firm  health  and  an  adherence  to  hygienic  rules, 
but  there  are  few  others. 

Tenth. — What  if  the  patient  grow  worse  ? 

Suppose  the  patient  should  appear  to  grow  worse.  This  I 
term  chemicalization.    It  is  the  upheaval  produced  when  Immor- 


80         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

tal  Truth  is  destroying  erroneous  and  mortal  belief.  Chemicali- 
zation brings  sin  and  sickness  to  the  surface,  as  in  a  fermenting 
fluid,  allowing  impurities  to  pass  away.  Patients  unfamiliar 
with  the  cause  of  this  commotion,  and  ignorant  that  it  is  a  fa- 
vorable omen,  may  be  alarmed.  If  such  is  the  case,  explain  to 
them  the  law  of  this  action. 

Eleventh, —  Subtle  mental  practices  are  recom- 
mended. 

I  will  here  state  a  phenomenon  which  I  have  observed.  If 
you  call  mentally  and  silently  the  disease  by  name,  as  you 
argue  against  it,  as  a  general  rule  the  body  will  respond  more 
quickly;  just  as  a  person  replies  more  readily  when  his  name 
is  spoken ;  but  this  is  because  you  are  not  perfectly  attuned  to 
Divine  Science,  and  need  the  arguments  of  truth  for  reminders. 
To  let  Spirit  bear  witness  without  words  is  the  more  scientific 
way. 

This  is  further  modified: 

You  may  call  the  disease  by  name  when  you  address  it  men- 
tally ;  but  by  naming  it  audibly,  you  are  liable  to  impress  it  upon 
the  mind.  The  Silence  of  Science  is  eloquent  and  powerful  to 
imclasp  the  hand  of  disease  and  reduce  it  to  nothingness. 

Twelfth. — Some  of  the  things  that  are  not  to  be 
done. 

A  Christian  Scientist  never  gives  medicine,  never  recommends 
hygiene,  never  manipulates.  He  never  tries  to  "focus  mind." 
He  never  places  patient  and  practitioner  "back  to  back,"  never 
consults  "spirits,"  nor  requires  the  life  history  of  his  patient. 
Above  all,  he  cannot  trespass  on  the  rights  of  Mind  through 
animal  magnetism. 

The  foregoing  rules  for  practice  are  taken  from 
Mrs.  Eddy's  different  works. 

The  difference  between  the  views  of  Mrs.  Eddy 
and  those  who  diverge  from  her  is  superficial,  though 
neither  she  nor  they  will  admit  it.    Miss  Kate  Tay- 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"         81 

lor,  in  "  Selfhood  Lost  in  Godhood,"  referring  to  Mrs. 
Eddy^s  large  work,  says  :  "  It  can  be  read  with  profit 
by  any  who  are  seeking  truth  with  sincerity,  and  with 
no  tendency  to  become  biased."  She  also  says  that 
she  was  formerly  a  member  of  the  Christian  Science 
Association,  and  "learned  that  limitations  are  not 
conducive  to  growth,  and  that,  as  Emerson  truly  says, 
^God  always  disappoints  monopolies,'"  and  frankly 
gives  her  opinion  of  those  denounced  by  her  former 
preceptor. 

The  so-called  mal-practitioners  and  mesmerists  therein  men- 
tioned, on  thorough  investigation, — not  only  by  myself,  but  in 
company  with  others  who  seek  to  be  liberal-minded  and  to  give 
Truth  its  due  wherever  it  exists,— I  find  to  be  simply  those  who 
have  separated  themselves  from  the  Association,  that  they  might 
pursue  their  own  convictions  of  right,  and  step  out  of  the  regu- 
lar ranks  of  stereotyped  terms  to  let  their  thoughts  find  expres- 
sion in  their  own  words. 

The  chief  point  of  departure  in  Miss  Taylor's  theo- 
ries from  those  of  Mrs.  Eddy  is  in  the  value  attached 
to  a  knowledge  of  the  preceding  life  of  the  patient. 

Physical  disease  has  many  different  causes.  The  physician 
treating  a  patient  is  often  narrowed  in  his  efforts  to  do  good, 
because  of  some  hidden  moral  or  mental  cause,  some  under- 
lying fear,  some  sorrow,  some  inherited  proclivity,  some  wrong 
unforgiven,  some  trait  of  character,  some  past  occurrence 
which  has  tinged,  perhaps  almost  unconsciously,  the  whole 
tenor  of  a  life.  It  is  not  necessary  that  a  person's  innermost 
sacred  thoughts  and  life  be  unveiled,  as  the  physician  does  not 
expect,  neither  does  he  like,  to  receive  confidences,  unless,  in- 
deed, they  are  given  voluntarily  with  a  feeling  of  trust.  Some 
word  or  hint,  though,  to  the  physician  would  often  aid  materi- 
ally. .  .  .  The  treatment  consists  in  a  vigorous  holding  of 
the  patient  to  his  right  of  soul-growth,  unobstructed  and  unre- 
tarded  by  physical  defects.  ...  In  answer  to  the  question, 
"Is  it  prayer?"  I  would  first  quote  Victor  Hugo's  definition  of 
prayer, — "  Every  thought  is  a  prayer;  there  are  moments  when, 
whatever  be  the  attitude  of  the  body,  the  soul  is  on  its  knees,"— 


82         ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE" 

and  thon  answer,  Yes,  it  is  prayer.  Prayer  with  the  old  inter- 
pretation begs  the  Father  to  change  the  unchangeable,  while 
prayer  with  the  new  interpretation  lifts  the  beggar  to  a  com- 
prehension that  he  himself  has  omitted  to  take  the  gifts  already 
prepared  for  him  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 

She  gives  this  advice  to  the  sick : 

Eradicate  all  thoughts  of  physiology,  drugs,  laws  of  health, 
sickness,  and  pain,  and  know  that  God  is  the  only  panacea, — 
divine  love  the  only  medicine.  .  .  .  Seek  the  help  of  a 
Christian  Healer.  .  .  .  Judge  him  not  unjustly,  .  .  . 
neither  be  in  opposition,  for  his  is  a  good  motive.  .  .  . 
While  under  his  treatment  obey  any  natural  impulse,  without 
fear  of  consequence.  Remember!  without  fear.  This  does  not 
mean  to  be  foolhardy  in  the  beginning, — unless  the  cure  should 
be  almost  instantaneous, — but  advance  gradually.  ...  If 
you  have  a  time  during  the  treatment  when  you  should  feel 
worse,  do  not  be  discouraged.  .  .  .  Look  forward.  .  .  . 
One  little  secret  it  is  well  to  know.  .  .  .  Deny  every  thought 
of  sickness  every  time  it  enters  your  mind.  .  .  .  Never  use 
wiU-power,  mistaking  it  for  divine  Truth. 

Also  Mrs.  Stuart  teaches  the  importance  of  a  know- 
ledge of  the  previous  life : 

A  man  came  to  me  from  Erie,  Penn.,  with  what  was  called 
by  different  M.  D's  softening  of  the  brain  and  Bright's  disease 
of  the  kidneys.  After  questioning  him  I  found  his  trouble 
dated  back  to  the  Chicago  fire.  Now  he  was  not  conscious  of 
any  fear,  was  in  no  personal  danger  for  himself  or  family.  But 
he  was  in  that  atmosphere  of  mental  confusion  and  terror  all 
through  the  city.  He  was  cured  by  treatment  on  that  point  and 
nothing  else.  A  woman  came  to  me  who  had  suffered  five  years 
with  what  the  doctors  called  rheumatism.  I  happened  to  know 
that  the  death  of  a  child  had  caused  this  effect.  By  silently 
erasing  that  picture  of  death  and  holding  in  its  place  an  image 
of  Life,  eternal  Life,  she  was  entirely  cured  in  twenty  minutes. 


CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"         83 


SPECIMEN   TREATMENTS 

Mental  treatment  is  that  which  the  metaphysical 
healer  is  supposed  to  be  giving  the  patient  when  she 
sits  silently  before  him  for  a  period  longer  or  shorter 
according  to  her  judgment  of  the  necessities  of  the 
case.  Some  of  the  practitioners  have  revealed  the 
thoughts  which  constitute  a  mental  treatment,  so  that 
if  truth  is  an  element  of  their  system,  we  can  speak 
confidently  upon  this  part  of  it. 

I  said  to  him  mentally:  "You  have  no  disease;  what  you 
call  your  disease  is  a  fixed  mode  of  thought  arising  from  the 
absence  of  positive  belief  in  absolute  good.  Be  stronger,"  I  said, 
"you  must  believe  in  absolute  good;  I  am  looking  at  you,  and 
I  see  you  a  beautiful,  strong  spirit,  perfectly  sound.  What 
makes  you  think  yourself  diseased?  You  are  not  diseased;  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt  is  reflected  on  your  feet,  but  it  has  no  real 
existence.  There,  look  down  yourself  and  see  that  it  is  gone. 
Why,  it  was  a  mere  negation,  and  the  place  where  you  located 
it  now  shows  for  itself  as  sound  as  the  rest  of  your  body.  Don't 
you  know  that  imperfection  is  impossible  to  that  beautiful 
creature,  your  real  self?  Since  there  is  no  evil  in  all  the  uni- 
verse, and  since  man  is  the  highest  expression  of  good  amidst 
ubiquitous  Good,  how  can  you  be  diseased?  You  are  not  dis- 
eased. There  is  not  an  angel  in  all  the  spheres  sounder  or  more 
divine  than  you."  Then  I  spoke  out  aloud:  "There  now,"  I 
said,  "you  won't  have  that  pain  again,"  As  I  said  it  there  was 
a  surge  of  conviction  through  me  that  seemed  to  act  on  the  blood- 
vessels of  my  body  and  made  me  tingle  all  over." — Helen  Wil- 

MANS. 

To  this  treatment  I  shall  refer  in  elucidating  the 
causes  of  the  phenomena. 

Dr.  Evans  controverts  some  of  Mrs.  Eddy's  theo- 
ries: 

To  modify  a  patient's  thinking  in  regard  to  himself  and 
his  disease,  we  employ  the  principle  of  suggestion  or  positive 


84         ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE" 

a-ffirmation— not  mental  argument,  as  it  is  sometimes  called, 
for  argument  creates  doubt  and  reaction.  No  sick  man  was 
ever  cured  by  reasoning  with  him,  mentally  or  verbally.  It  is 
the  business  of  the  man  who  knows  the  truth,  not  to  argue,  but 
to  affirm.  ...  No  intelligent  practitioner  of  the  mind  cure 
will  ignore  wholly  all  medical  science.  .  .  .  The  phreno- 
pathic  system  is  not  necessarily  antagonistic  to  other  methods 
of  cure,  as  the  various  hygienic  regulations,  and  even  the  use  of 
the  hannless  specific  remedies. 

He  repudiates  Mrs.  Eddy's  ideas  about  the  per- 
sonality of  God,  and  says: 

It  is  not  necessary  to  deny  the  personality  of  God.  .  .  . 
Neither  is  it  necessary  to  deny  the  personality  and  persistent 
individuality  of  the  human  spirit. 

He  also  flatly  denies  Miss  Taylor's  theories,  saying, 
"  The  selfhood  is  not  lost  in  Godhood."  "  It  is  not 
necessary  to  tell  a  man  dying  of  consumption  that  he 
is  not  sick,  for  that  is  not  true."  He  says  that  one 
may  or  may  not  use  the  imposition  of  hands  in  heal- 
ing the  sick. 

As  an  example  of  Christian  Science  superstition 
exceeding  anything  attempted  by  the  most  ignorant 
advocates  of  patent  Faith  Healing,  read  the  follow- 
ing, taken  verbatim,  italics,  small  caps,  etc.,  from  a 
text-book  on  Mind  Cure,  issued  by  the  President  of 
the  "New  York  School  of  Primitive  and  Practical 
Christian  Science,"  who  states  that  his  school  will  be 
free  from  "  eccentricity,  pretension,  and  fanaticism  " ! 

PRAYER  FOR  A  DYSPEPTIC. 

Holy  Reality!  We  BELIEVE  in  Thee  that  Thou  art  EVERY- 
WHERE present.  We  really  believe  it.  Blessed  Reality  we  do 
not  pretend  to  believe,  think  we  believe,  believe  that  we  believe. 
WE  BELIEVE.  Believing  that  Thou  art  every  where  present, 
we  believe  that  Thou  art  in  this  patient's  stomach,  in  every  fibre, 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   *'MIND  CURE"        85 

in  every  cell,  in  every  atom,  that  Thou  are  the  sole,  only  Reality 
of  that  stomach.     Heavenly,  Holy  Reality,  we  will  try  not  to  be 
such  hypocrites  and  infidels,  as  every  day  of  our  lives  to  afdrm 
our  faith  in  Thee  and  then  immediately  begin  to  tell  how  sick  we 
are,  forgetting  that  Thou  art  everything  and  that  Thou  art  not 
sick,  and  therefore  that  nothing  in  this  universe  was  ever  sick, 
is  now  sick,  or  can  be  sick.    Forgive  us  our  sins  in  that  we  have 
this  day  talked  about  our  backaches,  that  we  have  told  our 
neighbors  that  our  food  hurts  us,  that  we  mentioned  to  a  visitor 
that  there  was  a  lump  in  oui'  stomach,  that  we  have  wasted  our 
valuable  time  which  should  have  been  spent  in  Thy  service,  in 
worrying  for  fear  that  our  stomach  would  grow  worse,  in  that  we 
have  disobeyed  Thy  blessed  law  in  thinking  that  some  kind  of 
medicine  would  help  us.    We  know.  Father  and  Mother  of  us 
aU,  that  there  is  no  such  a  thing  as  a  really  diseased  stomach, 
that  the  disease  is  the  Carnal  Mortal  Mind  given  over  to  the 
World,  the  Flesh,  and  the  Devil ;  that  the  mortal  mind  is  a 
twist,  a  distortion,  a  false  attitude,  the  HARMATIA  of  Thought. 
Shining  and  Glorious  Verity ,  we  recognize  the  great  and  splendid 
FACT  that  the  moment  we  really  believe  the  Truth,  Disease 
ceases  to  trouble  us,  that  the  Truth  is  that  there  is  no  Disease 
in  either  real  Body  or  Mind ;  that  in  the  Mind  what  seems  to  be 
a  disease  is  a  False  Belief,  a  Parasite,  a  hateful  Excrescence, 
and  that  what  happens  in  the  Body  is  the  shadow  of  the  LIE  in 
the  Soul.    Lord,  help  us  to  believe  that  ALL  Evil  is  Utterly 
Unreal ;  that  it  is  silly  to  be  sick,  absurd  to  be  ailing,  wicked  to 
be  wailing,  atheism  and  denial  of  God  to  say  ''I  am  sick."  Help 
us  to  stoutly  affirm  with  our  hand  in  Your  hand,  with  our  eyes 
fixed  on  Thee  that  we  have  no  Dyspepsia,  that  we  never  had 
Dyspepsia,  that  we  will  never  have  Dyspepsia,  that  there  is  no 
such  thing,  that  there  never  was  any  such  thing,  that  there  never 
will  be  any  such  thing.  Amen.— Hazzard. 

It  is  claimed  by  all  the  Christian  Science  and  Mind 
Cnre  practitioners  that  they  can  operate  upon  patients 
at  a  distance. 

There  is  no  space  nor  time  to  mind.  A  person  in  St.  Louis 
may  be  near  to  me  while  I  am  in  New  York.  A  person  in  the 
same  room  may  be  very  distant.  Sit  down  and  think  about  the 
person  you  wish  to  affect.  Think  long  enough  and  strong  enough 
and  you  are  sure  to  reach  him. — Hazzard. 

The  following  is  a  case  of  heart  disease  which  I  cured  without 


86         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE" 

having  seen  the  patient :  "Please  find  enclosed  a  check  for  five 
hundred  dollars,  in  reward  for  your  services  that  can  never  be 
repaid.  The  day  you  received  niy  husband's  letter  I  became 
conscious  for  the  first  time  in  forty-eight  hours.  My  servant 
brought  my  wrapper,  and  I  arose  from  bed  and  sat  up.  .  .  .  The 
enlargement  of  my  left  side  is  all  gone,  and  the  doctors  pro- 
nounce me  rid  of  heart  disease.  I  had  been  afiiicted  with  it 
from  infancy.  It  became  organic  enlargement  of  the  heart  and 
dropsy  of  the  chest.  I  was  only  waiting  and  almost  longing  to 
die,  but  you  have  healed  me.  How  wonderful  to  think  of  it, 
when  you  and  I  have  never  seen  each  other." — Eddy. 

One  of  them  says : 

Remember  that  every  thought  that  you  think  will  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  persons  thought  of  if  you  think  long  enough  and 
strong  enough. — Hazzard. 

This  surpasses  the  love-powders  that  are  sold  among 
the  colored  people  and  the  ignorant,  as  it  is  necessary 
to  purchase  and  administer  them,  which  is  sometimes 
considerable  trouble. 

The  practical  directions  to  attain  this  power  are  as 
follows : 

How  to  "concentrate."  1.  Look  at  an  object  on  the  ceiling 
ten  minutes ;  think  of  that  object  alone.  2.  Write  a  proposition 
on  a  sheet  of  paper,  as  "  God  is  the  only  reality."  Think  it  for 
ten  minutes  with  your  eyes  fixed  upon  the  paper.  3.  Begin  to 
think  of  a  subject,  and  give  a  dollar  to  the  poor  for  every  time 
your  mind  wanders.  How  to  "  subjugate."  Forget  yourself,  for- 
get the  world,  forget  you  have  a  body,  forget  you  have  any 
business  or  friends.  Empty  your  mind  of  its  contents.  Be  a 
man  of  one  idea.     Get  out  of  yourself. — Hazzard. 

The  rules  for  absent  treatment  are : 

1.  Seat  yourself  alone.  Let  the  room  be  silent.  2.  Subjugate 
your  senses  to  all  else  but  your  thought.  3.  Fix  your  thought 
upon  the  patient.  4.  Picture  him  in  your  mind.  5.  Go  through 
the  treatment. —  Hazzard. 


•       "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"         87 

The  patient  may  be  in  three  different  ways.  He  may  be  sym- 
pathetic ;  that  will  help  you  greatly.  He  may  be  apathetic ; 
that  is  not  so  good,  but  better  than  the  next.  He  may  be 
antipathetic,  hostile  ;  then  say  not  a  word,  but  silently  "  give  it 
to  him"  till  he  becomes  less  "cantankerous"  and  more  Christ- 
like.—Hazzard. 


MIND  CURERS  VerSUS  FAITH  HEALERS, 
MESIHERISTS,  ETC. 

Mrs.  Eddy  speaks  of  Mesmerism  in  this  way: 

Mortal  mind,  acting  from  the  basis  of  sensuous  belief  in  mat- 
ter, is  animal  magnetism.  ...  In  proportion  as  you  understand 
Christian  Science  you  lose  animal  magnetism.  ...  Its  basis 
being  a  belief  and  this  belief  an  error,  animal  magnetism,  or 
mesmerism,  is  a  mere  negation,  possessing  neither  intelligence 
nor  power.  ...  An  evil  mind  at  work  mesmeric  ally  is  an  engine 
of  mischief  little  understood.  .  .  .  Animal  magnetism,  clairvoy- 
ance, mediumship,  and  mesmerism  are  antagonistic  to  this  Sci- 
ence, and  would  prevent  the  demonstration  thereof.  .  .  .  The 
Mesmeriser  produces  pain  by  making  his  subjects  believe  that 
he  feels  it ;  here  pain  is  proved  to  be  a  belief  without  any  ade- 
quate cause.  That  social  curse,  the  mesmerist,  by  making  his 
victims  believe  they  cannot  move  a  limb,  renders  it  impossible 
for  them  to  do  so  until  their  belief  or  understanding  masters  his. 

Of  Spiritualism : 

Spiritualism  with  its  material  accompaniments  would  destroy 
the  supremacy  of  Spirit. 

And  of  Clairvoyance  specifically: 

Clairvoyance  investigates  and  influences  mortal  thought  only. 
.  .  .  Clairvoyance  can  do  evil,  can  accuse  wrongfully,  and 
err  in  every  direction. 

Of  Faith  Cure: 

It  is  asked,  Why  are  faith  cures  sometimes  more  speedy  than 
some  of  the  cures  wrought  through  Christian  Scientists?    Be- 


88         ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

cause  faith  is  belief,  and  not  understanding;  and  it  is  easier  to 
believe  than  to  understand  Spiritual  Truth.  It  demands  less 
cross-bearing,  self-renunciation,  and  Divine  Science,  to  admit 
the  claims  of  the  personal  senses,  and  appeal  for  relief  to  a 
humanized  God,  than  to  deny  those  claims  and  learn  the  divine 
way,  drinking  his  cup,  being  baptized  with  his  baptism,  gaining 
the  end  through  persecution  and  purity.  Millions  are  believing 
in  God,  or  Good,  without  sharing  the  fruits  of  goodness,  not 
having  reached  its  Science.  Belief  is  mental  blindness,  if  it 
admits  Truth  without  understanding  it.  It  cannot  say  with  the 
Apostle,  "I  know  in  whom  I  have  believed."  There  is  even 
danger  in  the  mental  state  called  belief,  for  if  Truth  is  admitted 
but  not  understood,  error  may  enter  through  this  same  channel 
of  ignorance.  The  Faith  cure  has  devout  followers,  whose  Chris- 
tian practice  is  far  in  advance  of  mere  theory. 

Marston,  speaking  of  change  in  the  inverted  thought 
of  the  sick  person,  says : 

Since  a  change  of  the  inverted  thought  of  the  sick  person  is 
all  that  can  be  produced  by  extraneous  influence,  the  treatment 
of  a  professional  Healer  is  not  the  only  means  of  securing  it. 
While  a  majority  of  cases  are  affected  in  that  way,  there  are 
well-attested  instances  to  show  that  anything  that  will  enable 
the  sick  person  to  change  his  thought  may  put  him  in  a  condi- 
tion to  receive  spiritual  healing.  A  text  from  Scripture  or  some 
other  writings  may  be  brought  to  his  mind  with  such  force  as  to 
do  this,  or  some  sudden  event  may  startle  him  out  of  his  chronic 
delusion.  It  is  in  this  way  alone  that  we  can  account  for  cures 
that  seem  to  result  from  prayer,  a  resort  to  relics,  charms,  and 
other  things  believed  to  possess  peculiar  virtue.  This  is  why 
good  results  follow  any  one  of  the  thousand  absurd  acts,  by  the 
performance  of  which  superstitious  and  credulous  people  seek 
to  be  restored  to  health. 


Another  remarks : 

The  question  is  often  asked,  In  what  does  the  Christian  Sci- 
ence healing  differ  from  the  faith  cure  ?  In  the  faith  cure  the 
patient  must  have  faith ;  in  Christian  Science  that  is  not  neces- 
sary; patients  have  frequently  been  helped  or  entirely  cured, 
without  knowing  they  were  being  treated.     ...     No  great 


''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"         89 

faith  is  necessary  on  the  part  of  the  patient ;  but  it  will  expe- 
dite his  recovery  if  he  take  interest  enough  in  the  method  by 
which  he  is  being  healed  to  read  suitable  books  on  the  subject, 
and  converse  profitably  with  the  healer.  .  .  .  Prayer  to  a 
personal  God  affects  the  sick  like  a  drug  that  has  no  efl&cacy  of 
its  own,  but  borrows  its  power  from  human  faith  and  belief. 
The  drug  does  nothing  because  it  has  no  intelligence. 


TESTS  OF  THE  THEORY 

First  Test.  If  their  principles  be  true,  food  should 
not  be  necessary.    Mrs.  Eddy  affirms  this : 

Gustatory  pleasure  is  a  sensuous  illusion,  an  illusion  that 
diminishes  as  we  understand  our  spiritual  being  and  ascend 
the  ladder  of  Life.  This  woman  learned  that  food  neither 
strengthens  nor  weakens  the  body,  —  that  mind  alone  does 
this.  .  .  .  Teach  them  that  their  bodies  are  nourished 
more  by  Truth  than  by  food. 

Then,  finding  herself  unable  to  silence  the  testi- 
mony of  the  senses,  she  endeavors  to  circumvent  it 
thus: 

Admitting  the  common  hypothesis,  that  food  is  requisite  to 
sustain  human  life,  there  follows  the  necessity  for  another  ad- 
mission, in  the  opposite  direction,  —  namely,  that  food  has 
power  to  destroy  life,  through  its  deficiency  or  excess,  in  qual- 
ity or  quantity.  This  is  a  specimen  of  the  ambiguous  charac- 
ter of  all  material  health-theories.  They  are  seK-eontradictory 
and  self -destructive, —  "a  kingdom  divided  against  itself,  that 
is  brought  to  desolation."  If  food  preserves  life,  it  cannot 
destroy  it.  The  truth  is,  food  does  not  affect  the  life  of  man; 
and  this  becomes  self-evident  when  we  learn  that  God  is  our 
only  life.  Because  sin  and  sickness  are  not  qualities  of  Soul  or 
Life,  we  have  hope  in  immortality;  but  it  would  be  foolish  to 
venture  beyond  our  present  understanding,  foolish  to  stop  eat- 
ing, until  we  gain  more  goodness  and  a  clearer  comprehension 
of  the  living  God.  In  that  perfect  day  of  understanding,  we 
shall  neither  eat  to  live,  nor  live  to  eat. 


90         ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

When  they  dispense  with  food  because  '^mortal 
mind "  is  under  the  influence  of  an  illusion  concern- 
ing it,  —  absurdly  supposing  ''  that  food  supports 
life/'  —  and  continue  to  live  with  the  accidents  of 
the  human  body  sustained  entirely  by  the  divine 
^'substance"  of  which  they  speak,  they  will  furnish 
a  demonstration  which  will  utterly  destroy  every 
remaining  illusion  of  mortal  mind.  But  so  long  as 
they  eat,  they  are  either  voluntarily  perpetuating 
an  illusion,  or  demonstrating  that  they  are  wrong 
in  their  notions.  If  they  are  in  such  a  low  stage 
as  to  be  compelled  to  eat  when  it  would  not  be 
necessary  if  they  were  in  a  higher  plane,  they  may, 
for  the  same  reason,  be  compelled  to  use  drugs. 

Second  Test,  They  deny  that  drugs,  per  se,  as  taken 
into  the  human  system,  have  any  power. 

Christian  Science  divests  material  drugs  of  their  imaginary 
power.  .  .  .  The  nselessness  of  drugs,  the  emptiness  of 
knowledge,  the  nothingness  of  matter  and  its  imaginary  laws, 
are  apparent  as  we  rise  from  the  rubbish  of  belief  to  the  acqui- 
sition and  demonstration  of  spiritual  understanding.  .  .  . 
When  the  sick  recover  by  the  use  of  drugs,  it  is  the  law  of  a 
general  belief,  culminating  in  individual  faith  that  heals,  and 
according  to  this  faith  wiU  the  effect  be. — Eddy. 


Surely  the  mind  needs  healing  that  could  invent  the 
following  absurdity : 

/  The  not  uncommon  notion  that  drugs  possess  absolute,  in- 
herent curative  virtues  of  their  own  involves  an  error.  Arnica, 
quinine,  opium,  could  not  produce  the  effects  ascribed  to  them 
except  by  imputed  virtue.  Men  think  they  will  act  thus  on  the 
physical  system,  consequently  they  do.  The  property  of  alco- 
hol is  to  intoxicate;  but  if  the  common  thought  had  endowed 
it  simply  with  a  nourishing  quality  like  milk,  it  would  produce 
a  similar  effect.  A  curious  question  arises  about  the  origin  of 
healing  virtues,  if  it  be  admitted  that  all  drugs  were  originally 
destitute  of  them.    We  can  conceive  of  a  time  in  the  mental 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"         91 

history  of  the  race  when  no  therapeutic  value  was  assigned  to 
certain  drugs,  when,  in  fact,  it  was  not  known  that  they  pos- 
sessed any.  How  did  it  come  to  pass  that  common  thought,  or 
any  thought,  eudowed  them  with  healing  virtue,  in  the  first 
place  ?  Simply  in  this  way :  Man  finding  himself  unprotected, 
and  liable  to  be  hurt  by  the  elements  in  the  midst  of  which  he 
lived,  forgot  the  true  source  of  healing,  and  began  to  seek 
earnestly  for  material  remedies  for  disease  and  wounds.  The 
desire  for  something  led  to  experiments ;  and  with  each  trial 
there  was  associated  the  hope  that  the  means  applied  would 
prove  efficacious.  Then  what  was  at  first  an  earnest  hope  came 
at  length  to  be  a  belief ;  and  thus,  by  gradual  steps,  a  belief  in 
the  contents  of  the  entire  pharmacopoeia  was  established. — 
Marston. 


It  is  true  that  in  many  cases  the  effect  of  a  medi- 
cine is  to  be  attributed  entirely  to  the  imagination,  or 
to  the  belief  that  it  will  have  such  and  such  effects ; 
but  the  statement  of  such  extreme  positions  as  these 
shows  the  irrationality  of  the  theories  upon  which 
they  are  based.  According  to  the  above,  if  it  were 
generally  believed  that  alcohol  were  un intoxicating, 
nourishing,  and  bland  as  milk,  it  would  be  an  ex- 
cellent article  with  which  to  nourish  infants  j  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  it  were  generally  believed  that 
milk  were  intoxicating,  all  the  influences  of  alcohol 
would  be  produced  upon  those  who  drank  it.  If  the 
public  could  only  be  educated  to  believe  alcohol  to  be 
nourishing,  the  entire  mammalian  genus  might  be 
nursing  their  offspring  upon  alcohol  with  equally 
good  results.  No  insane  asylum  can  furnish  a  more 
transparent  delusion. 

That  drugs  produce  effects  upon  animals  has  been 
demonstrated  beyond  the  possibility  of  contradiction, 
and  that,  when  the  animals  did  not  know  that  they 
were  taking  drugs;  and  small  doses  have  produced 
not  the  slightest  effect,  while  large  doses — the  ani- 
mals in  each  case  not  knowing  that  they  were  tak- 


92         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

ing  medicines — have  produced  great  effect,  and  do 
so  with  uniformity.  Also  the  effect  of  medicines 
upon  idiots  and  unconscious  infants  is  capable  of 
exact  demonstration. 

Allied  to  the  effect  of  drugs  is  that  of  poisons^ 
almost  every  drug  having  the  effect  of  a  poison  if 
taken  in  excess.  Some  poisons,  however,  are  of  such 
nature  that  the  smallest  possible  dose  may  be  at- 
tended with  fatal  results.  In  the  case  of  animals, 
poisons  introduced  into  the  system  without  the  know- 
ledge of  the  animals  do  their  work  effectually. 
Strychnine  carefully  introduced  into  a  piece  of  meat 
so  small  that  a  cat  will  swallow  it  whole,  will  in  a 
very  short  time  show  its  effects.  The  instinct  of  the 
animal  will  cause  its  rejection  if  there  be  the  slightest 
possibility  of  perceiving  it;  but  if  sufficient  means  be 
taken  to  keep  the  animal  from  knowing  that  it  is 
taking  anything  except  meat,  it  will  swallow  the  meat, 
and  the  poison  will  do  its  work. 

These  facts  are  admitted  by  the  advocates  of 
Christian  Science  and  Mind  Cure,  and  the  absolute 
lunacy  of  their  theories  is  seen  in  the  manner  in 
which  they  attempt  to  account  for  the  effects. 

If  a  dose  of  poison  is  swallowed  through  mistake,  the  pa- 
tient dies,  while  physician  and  patient  are  expecting  favora- 
ble results.  Did  belief  cause  this  death?  Even  so,  and  as 
directly  as  if  the  poison  had  been  intentionally  taken.  .  .  . 
The  few  who  think  a  drug  harmless,  where  a  mistake  has  been 
made  in  the  prescription,  are  unequal  to  the  many  who  have 
named  it  poison,  and  so  the  majority  opinion  governs  the 
result. — Eddy. 

It  is  said  that  arsenic  kills;  but  it  would  be  very  difficult 
for  any  one  to  prove  how  it  kills;  since  persons  have  had  all 
the  symptoms  of  arsenic  poisoning  without  having  taken  any 
arsenic ;  and  again,  persons  have  taken  arsenic  and  did  not  die. 
.  .  .  Suppose  you  take  a  child  that  knows  nothing  about 
arsenic,  and  administer  the  usual  dose,  the  child  will  probably 
die,  but  I  will  show  you  that  the  arsenic  was  not  the  cause  of 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"         93 

the  death.  .  .  .  Here  you  may  say,  "What  had  the  life  of 
the  child  to  do  with  the  action,  the  child  not  knowing  anything 
about  arsenic  ?  "  We  will  admit  that  the  child  was  ignorant  of 
the  nature  of  the  poison,  but  all  who  are  educated  in  physi- 
ology and  materia  medica  know  that  it  kills,  therefore  the 
thought,  although  unconscious  to  the  child,  was  hereditary  in 
its  life.  It  is,  indeed,  a  universal  thought  admitted  as  a  fact  in 
every  life  or  soul.  A  thought  is  a  product  of  life  and  is  action, 
and  this  thought,  produced  and  accepted  by  life,  acts  upon  the 
life  of  the  child  and  produces  unconsciously  a  confusion  therein. 
This  confusion  produces  a  fear;  this  fear  in  the  child's  life  heats 
the  blood  and  causes  the  first  conscious  action. — Arens. 

The  effects  of  various  experiments,  with  chemicals  and 
medicine,  upon  cats  and  dogs,  are  studied  most  minutely  by 
distinguished  scientific  men,  and  the  results  witnessed  pub- 
lished to  the  world  with  a  presumption  of  wisdom  and  pro- 
fundity of  learning  that  carry  the  conviction  to  most  minds  that 
the  properties  of  such  drugs,  and  their  effects  upon  the  human 
system,  have  been  forever  established.  And  Materia  Medica 
falls  back  upon  these  so-called  demonstrations  of  Science  as 
absolutely  indisputable  proofs  of  its  Theories.  Now  it  never 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  them  that  all  the  effects  witnessed 
of  such  experimenting  might  be  accounted  for  on  the  basis 
of  Thought,  and  with  the  view  of  investigating  the  subject  to 
establish  a  totally  opposite  explanation ;  and  to  show  that  Mind 
acting  on  Matter  could  account  for  all  their  facts,  the  follow- 
ing experiments  have  been  recently  made :  The  object  of  the  ex- 
periments was  a  dog,  a  noble  thoroughbred,  of  great  sagacity 
and  intelligence.  The  first  experiment  consisted  in  conveying 
commands  to  him  entirely  through  mind.  Not  a  word  was 
spoken,  but  his  mistress  would  say  to  him  mentally, —  "Carlo, 
come  here,"  or  "Carlo,  lie  down,"  and  although  the  thought 
might  have  to  be  repeated  mentally  a  number  of  times,  yet  it 
would  reach  him,  and  sometimes  he  would  respond  almost  im- 
mediately. Second  experiment :  One  day  his  master  discovered 
an  appearance  to  which  he  gave  the  name  Mange.  All  the 
dogs  around  were  having  it.  It  was  catching, — Dr.  So-and-So 
had  pronounced  it  mange,  and  prescribed  a  mixture  of  Sulphur 
and  Castor  Oil,  etc.,  which  was  to  be  applied  externally  in  such 
a  way  that  Carlo,  in  attempting  to  remove  the  preparation  with 
his  tongue,  would  get  a  dose  into  his  system.  But  here  the 
mistress  interposed,  and  insisted  that  Carlo  should  be  subjected 
wholly  to  mental  treatment.  The  result  was  entirely  satisfac- 
tory.    The  appearance  vanished  as  it  came.    Again  the  experi- 


94         "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

meut  of  placing  Carlo  entirely  under  the  intelligence  of  his 
master's  miud  and  thoughts  for  a  certain  period  was  tried,  and 
compared  with  the  effects  of  leaving  him  wholly  under  his 
mistress's  mind.  In  the  former  case  he  soon  exhibited  every 
symptom  of  dyspepsia  and  indigestion  in  every  form  to  which 
the  master  was  subject,  and  in  a  very  marked  degree.  But 
under  the  thought  of  the  mistress,  every  symptom  and  ap- 
pearance vanished  at  once.  He  soon  attained  a  perfection 
of  physical  condition  which  constantly  attracted  the  notice  of 
every  one.  Experiments  of  this  kind  were  carried  much  fur- 
ther, and  can  be  by  any  one  who  wishes  to  test  the  matter  for 
themselves.  In  all  the  instances  just  mentioned,  the  physical 
condition  of  the  dog  responded  to  the  mind  under  whose  in- 
fluence it  chanced  to  bo.  Love  and  Fear  {especially  fear)  are 
the  most  marked  characteristics  of  the  animal  mind.  The  in- 
stances are  innumerable  where  the  instinct  of  the  animal  sur- 
passes the  reason  of  man  in  detecting  the  kindly  thought,  or 
the  thought  of  harm,  toward  itself.  When  a  scientific  experi- 
menter gives  a  drug  to  a  dog,  it  is  done  with  a  perfect  certainty 
in  his  mind  that  disorder,  derangement  of  the  system,  suffering, 
etc.,  in  some  form  or  another,  are  sure  to  follow.  A  fear  cor- 
responding to  the  thought  of  the  man  instantly  seizes  upon  the 
dog,  and  various  results  do  follow.  The  experimenter  notes 
them  down  and  then  proceeds  to  try  his  drug  on  dog  number  2, 
all  the  while  holding  in  his  mind  an  image  of  the  results  of  ex- 
periment number  1,  expecting  to  see  similar  results.  In  all 
probability  he  sees  them. — Stuart. i 

Third  Test  Extraordinary  accidents  to  the  body. 
Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  power  of  thought  in  the 
production  of  ordinary  disease,  the  effects  of  acci- 
dents to  persons  who  are  entirely  unconscious  when 

1  Mrs.  Stuart  in  the  forej^oing  passage  is  only  a  little  more  absurd 
than  Mrs.  Eddy.  "The  preference  of  mortal  mind  for  any  method 
creates  a  demand  for  it,  and  the  body  seems  to  require  it.  You  can 
even  educate  a  healthy  horse  so  far  in  physiology  that  he  will  take 
cold  without  his  blanket;  whereas  the  wild  animal,  left  to  his  in- 
stincts, sniffs  the  wind  with  delight."  The  connection  of  this  quota- 
tion with  what  goes  "before  shows  that  the  horse  does  not  take  cold,  in 
the  opinion  of  Mrs.  Eddy,  because,  having  been  accustomed  to  the 
blanket,  his  system  is  so  weakened  that  he  ^vill  take  cold  without  it ; 
but  because  the  training  of  the  said  horse  has  been  such  that  he  is  led 
to  believe  that  if  the  blanket  is  not  on  he  will  take  cold! 


"CHEISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"        95 

they  occur,  as  the  sleeping  victims  of  railroad  disas- 
ters, are  facts  which,  if  they  do  not  terminate  human 
life  at  once,  require  the  aid  of  surgery. 
Mrs.  Eddy  says : 

The  fear  of  dissevered  bodily  members,  or  a  belief  in  such  a 
possibility,  is  reflected  on  the  body,  in  the  shape  of  headache, 
fractured  bones,  dislocated  joints,  and  so  on,  as  directly  as 
shame  is  seen  in  the  blush  rising  to  the  cheek.  This  human 
error  about  physical  wounds  and  colics  is  part  and  parcel  of  the 
delusion  that  matter  can  feel  and  see,  having  sensation  and 
substance. 

It  is  confessed,  however,  that  very  little  progress 
has  been  made  in  this  department: 

Christian  Science  is  always  the  most  skilful  surgeon,  but 
surgery  is  the  branch  of  its  healing  that  will  be  last  demon- 
strated. However,  it  is  but  just  to  say  that  I  have  already  in 
my  possession  well-authenticated  records  of  the  cure,  by  mental 
surgery  alone,  of  dislocated  hip-joints  and  spinal  vertebrae. 

But  records,  to  be  well  authenticated,  require  more 
than  an  assertion.  And  the  records  may  be  authen- 
tic, and  what  they  contain  may  never  have  been 
thoroughly  tested.  As  they  affirm  that  "  bones  have 
only  the  substance  of  thought,  they  are  only  an  ap- 
pearance to  mortal  mind " ;  if  their  theories  be  true 
at  all,  they  should  be  able  to  rectify  every  result 
of  accident  to  the  body  as  readily  and  speedily  as 
diseases  originating  within  the  system. 

Fourth  Test  Insanity.  It  is  a  well-established  fact 
that  blows  upon  the  head  produce  insanity.  It  is 
equally  well  established  that  surgery  in  many  cases  is 
able  to  remove  the  difficulty  by  an  obviously  physical 
readjustment,  where  the  surgeon  himself  cannot  be 
positive  what  the  effect  will  be  until  after  the  experi- 
ment, and  the  victim  has  no  knowledge  whatever 


96         '^ CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   '*M1ND  CURE" 

upon  the  subject.  During  the  late  war,  a  negro  was 
wounded  in  the  head  by  the  explosion  of  a  shell.  He 
wandered  about  for  several  years,  to  all  appearance  a 
driveling  idiot,  when  certain  surgeons  took  an  interest 
in  his  case,  and  concluded  that  the  removal  of  a  piece 
of  the  skull  which  had  been  driven  in  and  pressed 
upon  the  brain,  might  restore  his  reason.  Knowing 
that  no  damage  could  be  done  to  his  mind  by  the 
operation,  they  performed  it,  and  were  almost  appalled 
when,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  years,  as  they  lifted 
the  piece  of  skull  and  removed  the  pressure  upon  the 
brain,  the  light  of  intelligence  returned  to  the  eye  of 
the  man,  who  said,  "We  were  at  Manassas  yesterday  ; 
where  are  we  to-day?"  A  similar  case,  where  there 
had  been  delirium  alternating  with  coma  for  a  week, 
occurred  in  March  last. 

The  transient  effect  of  stimulants  upon  persons 
who  have  been  in  a  state  of  dementia  apparently  for 
a  long  time,  is  also  well  known. 

Mrs.  Eddy  upon  this  subject  directs  practitioners 
to  tell  the  moderately  sick  man, 

that  he  suffers  only  as  the  insane  suffer,  from  a  mere  belief. 
The  only  difference  is  that  insanity  implies  belief  in  a  diseased 
brain,  while  physical  ailments  (so  called)  arise  from  belief  that 
some  other  portions  of  the  body  are  deranged.  .  .  .  The  entire 
mortal  body  is  evolved  from  mortal  mind.  A  bunion  would  pro- 
duce insanity  as  perceptible  as  that  produced  by  congestion  of 
the  brain,  were  it  not  that  mortal  mind  calls  the  bunion  an  un- 
conscious portion  of  the  body.  Reverse  this  belief,  and  the 
results  would  be  different. 

It  may  be  readily  admitted  that  if  a  man  believed 
his  mind  was  in  his  foot,  and  believed  it  was  out  of 
order,  he  might  be  crazy.  But  in  selecting  the  bun- 
ion for  an  illustration,  Mrs.  Eddy  was  not  so  wide  of 
the  mark  as  she  might  have  been.  More  than  twenty 
years  ago,  while  listening  to  the  lectures  of  Dr.  C.  E. 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"        97 

Brown -Sequard,  before  the  physicians  of  Brooklyn,  I 
heard  him  give  the  following  case :  A  youth  (fourteen 
years  old)  went  to  bed  perfectly  sane,  nor  had  he  ever 
had  a  symptom  of  insanity.  The  next  morning  when 
he  arose  and  stepped  upon  the  floor  he  became  a  ma- 
niac. With  great  difficulty  he  was  replaced  upon  the 
bed,  and  the  moment  he  touched  it  he  was  sane.  Dur- 
ing the  morning  he  made  several  attempts  to  rise,  al- 
ways with  the  same  result.  A  physician  was  called, 
who  in  his  account  of  the  case  says :  ^' When  sitting 
up  in  his  bed  he  drew  on  his  stockings ;  but  on  puttinr/ 
his  feet  on  the  floor  and  standing  up,  his  countenance 
instantly  changed,  the  jaw  became  violently  convulsed, 
etc.  He  was  pushed  back  on  the  bed,  was  at  once 
calm,  looked  surprised,  and  asked  what  was  the  mat- 
ter. Inquiry  showed  that  he  had  been  fishing  the 
preceding  day,  but  had  met  with  no  accident.  His 
legs  were  examined  minutely,  but  nothing  unusual 
was  seen ;  but,  says  the  physician,  "  On  holding  up  the 
right  great  toe  with  my  finger  and  thumb  to  exayniyie  the 
sole  of  that  foot,  the  leg  was  drawn  up  and  the  muscles 
of  the  jaws  were  suddenly  convulsed,  and  on  releasing  the 
toe  these  effects  instantly  ceasedP  After  further  experi- 
ment, an  irritated  point,  so  small  as  to  be  scarcely 
visible,  was  taken  away  by  the  cutting  of  a  piece  of 
skin,  and  "  the  strange  sensation  was  gone  and  never 
returned."  ^ 


1  This  case  can  be  found  (No.  44)  in  "Lectures  on  the  Physi- 
ology and  Pathology  of  the  Central  Nervous  System,"  by  Brown- 
Sequard ;  published,  1860,  in  Philadelphia.  Also  in  Holmes's 
"Annals  of  Surgery,"  vol.  3,  p.  330. 

A  similar  account  can  be  found  of  insanity  produced  four 
years  after  a  boy  trod  on  a  piece  of  glass,  which  was  entirely 
relieved  by  removing  from  a  point  near  the  ball  of  the  big  toe  a 
trifling  piece  of  glass.  What  is  called  the  nervous  temperament 
or  condition  is  of  importance. 


/ 


98         ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE" 

Post-mortem  examinations  which  exhibit  the  de- 
generation of  the  brain  structure  are  of  no  impor- 
tance in  the  eyes  of  these  professors  of  dreams. 

Fifth  Test.  The  perpetuation  of  youth  and  the  aboli- 
tion of  death  should  also  be  within  the  range  of  these 
magicians. 

Baldwin,  of  Chicago,  says : 

Man  should  grow  younger  as  he  grows  older ;  the  principle  is 
simple.  *'As  we  think  so  are  we"  is  stereotyped.  Thoughts 
and  ideas  are  ever  striving  for  external  expression.  By  keep- 
ing the  mind  young  we  have  a  perfect  guarantee  for  continued 
youthfulness  of  body.  Thought  will  externalize  itself;  thus 
growing  thought  will  ever  keep  us  young.  Reliance  on  drugs 
makes  the  mind,  consequently  the  body,  prematurely  old.  This 
new  system  will  make  us  younger  at  seventy  than  at  seventeen, 
for  then  we  will  have  more  of  genuine  philosophy. 

Mrs.  Eddy  meets  this  matter  in  the  style  of  Jules 
Verne : 

The  error  of  thinking  that  we  are  growing  old,  and  the  bene- 
fits of  destroying  that  illusion,  are  illustrated  in  a  sketch  from 
the  history  of  an  English  lady,  published  in  the  London  ''  Lan- 
cet." Disappointed  in  love  in  early  years  she  became  insane. 
She  lost  all  calculation  of  time.  Believing  that  she  still  lived 
in  the  same  hour  that  parted  her  from  her  lover,  she  took  no 
note  of  years,  but  daily  stood  before  the  window,  watching  for 
his  coming.  In  this  mental  state  she  remained  young.  Having 
no  appearance  of  age,  she  literally  grew  no  older.  Some  Amer- 
ican travelers  saw  her  when  she  was  seventy-four,  and  sup- 
posed her  a  young  lady.  Not  a  wrinkle  or  gray  hair  appeared, 
but  youth  sat  gently  on  cheek  and  brow.  Asked  to  judge  her 
age,  and  being  unacquainted  with  her  history,  each  visitor  con- 
jectui'ed  that  she  must  be  under  twenty. 

That  the  above  should  be  adduced  as  proof  of  any- 
thing would  be  wonderful  if  the  person  adducing  it 
had  not  previously  adopted  a  theory  which  super- 
sedes the  necessity  of  demonstration.  It  is  impor- 
tant to  notice  that  if  the  belief  had  anything  to  do 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"        99 

with  it,  this  amazing  result  grew  from  a  belief  in 
a  falsehood.  She  did  not  live  in  the  same  hour  that 
parted  her  from  her  lover;  she  believed  that  she  did, 
and,  according  to  Mrs.  Eddy,  this  belief  of  a  false- 
hood counteracted  all  the  ordinary  consequences  of 
the  flight  of  time. 

But  the  delusion  among  the  insane  that  they  are 
young,  that  they  are  independent  of  time  and  of  this 
world,  is  very  common  ,•  and  the  most  painfully  para- 
doxical sights  that  I  have  ever  witnessed  have  been 
men  and  women,  toothless,  denuded  of  hair,  and  with 
all  the  signs  of  age,— sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste, 
sans  everything,— some  of  them  declaring  that  they 
were  young  girls  and  engaged  to  be  married  to  presi- 
dents and  kings,  and  even  to  divine  beings.  These 
delusions  in  some  instances  have  been  fixed  for  many 
years.  Having  had  an  official  connection  with  an 
insane  asylum  for  five  years,  I  have  had  more  oppor- 
tunities than  were  desired  for  conversing  with  per- 
sons of  this  class. 

Granting  the  case  adduced  by  Mrs.  Eddy  to  be 
true,  and  admitting  that  the  state  of  the  mind  may 
have  had  some  effect,  it  is  of  no  scientific  impor- 
tance; for  the  number  who  show  no  signs  of  age 
until  fifty,  sixty,  or  even  seventy  years  have  passed, 
is  by  no  means  small  in  the  aggregate;  we  meet 
them  everywhere.  One  of  the  most  astute  observ- 
ers of  human  nature,  himself  a  physician,  solemnly 
warned  a  gentleman  that  if  he  continued  to  take 
only  four  hours'  sleep  in  twenty-four,  he  would  die 
before  he  was  fifty  years  of  age.  ''What  do  you 
suppose  my  age  to  be  now?"  said  the  gentleman. 
"Thirty,"  said  the  physician.  ''I  am  sixty-nine," 
was  the  reply,  which  proved  to  be  the  fact. 

Mrs.  Eddy,  not  content  with  this  case,  continues: 
"I  have  seen  age  regain  two  of  the  elements  it. had 


100      ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND  ''MIND  CURE" 

,  \  lost,  sight  and  teeth.  A  lady  of  eighty-five  whom  I 
\  knew  had  a  return  of  sight.  Another  lady  at  ninety 
had  new  teeth, — incisors,  cuspids,  bicuspids,  and  one 
molar."  Such  instances  as  these  are  not  uncommon, 
but  are  generally  a  great  surprise  to  the  persons 
themselves,  and  unconnected  with  any  delusion  as  to 
flight  of  time.     They  are  simply  fi'eaks  of  nature. 

There  is  a  flattening  of  the  eye  which  comes  on  with 
advancing  years,  and  necessitates  the  use  of  glasses. 
Many  persons  who  have  few  signs  of  age,  retain  the 
color  of  the  cheek,  have  lost  no  teeth,  and  whose 
natural  force  is  not  abated,  find  their  eyes  dim.  Ac- 
cording to  these  metaphysical  healers  this  is  not 
necessary,  but  I  have  observed  that  a  number  of 
them  say  nothing  about  being  themselves  compelled 
to  use  glasses. 

Much  is  made  of  one  case  of  a  metaphysical  healer, 
who,  after  using  glasses  fifteen  years,  threw  them 
away,  and  can  now  read  even  in  the  railroad  cars 
without  them.  Such  cases  of  second  sight  have  oc- 
curred at  intervals  always,  and  under  all  systems, 
and  sometimes  when  the  progress  of  old  age  had 
been  so  great  that  the  persons  had  suffered  many  in- 
firmities, and  had  but  a  few  months  left  in  which  to 
"  see  as  well  as  ever  they  did  in  their  lives." 

Some  famous  actors  and  actresses,  without  the  use 
of  pigments,  dyes,  or  paints,  notwithstanding  the 
iiTegular  hours  and  other  accidents  of  their  profes- 
sional life,  have  maintained  an  astonishing  youthful- 
ness  of  appearance  down  to  nearly  threescore  years 
and  ten. 

John  Wesley  at  seventy-five,  according  to  testimony 
indubitable  and  from  a  variety  of  sources,  not  only 
presented  the  appearance  of  a  man  not  yet  past  the 
prime  of  life,  but,  what  is  more  remarkable,  had  the 
undiminished  energy,  vivacity,  melody  and  strength 


** CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND  "MIND  CURE"      101 

of  voice  which  accompany  youth.  Nor  at  eighty-five 
had  he  exhibited  much  change.  In  the  city  of  Chicago 
there  died  recently  a  professional  man  nearly  seventy- 
five  years  of  age,  whose  teeth,  complexion,  color,  hair, 
voice,  and  mind  showed  no  signs  of  his  being  over 
forty-five  years  of  age.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  Jan- 
uary before  his  death,  could  write  to  his  oldest  brother 
that  he  had  no  rheumatism,  neuralgia,  sleeplessness, 
or  deaf ness,  was  not  bald,  and  did  not  need  spectacles. 

Meanwhile  it  is  impossible  not  to  suppose  that  the 
case  as  described  by  Mrs.  Eddy  has  been  greatly  ex- 
aggerated. That  some  Americans  who  saw  her  at  the 
age  of  seventy-four  supposed  her  to  be  under  twenty, 
is  to  be  taken  "  cum  grano  salts J^ 

As  for  death,  if  the  theories  of  these  romantic  phi- 
losophers be  true,  it  should  give  way ;  if  not  in  every 
case,  at  least  in  some.  It  is  said  that  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  persons  in  Boston  who  believe  that  Mrs. 
Eddy  will  never  die.  Joanna  Southcott,  who  arose 
in  England  in  1792,  made  many  disciples,  by  some 
estimated  at  one  hundred  thousand,  who  believed 
that  she  would  never  die;  but  unfortunately  for  their 
credulity  she  succumbed  to  the  inevitable  decree. 

Sixth  Test  If  these  theories  are  true,  clothing,  so  far 
as  sustaining  warmth  and  life  is  concerned,  is  super- 
fluous, and  fire  unnecessary.  This  conclusion  reduces 
the  whole  scheme  to  an  absurdity. 


EXPLANATION  OP  THEIR  ALLEGED  SUCCESS 

In  endeavoring  to  ascertain  the  causes  of  recov- 
eries which  undoubtedly  occur  when  the  patient  is 
under  the  supervision  of  Christian  Scientists  and 
Mind  Curers,  it  would  be  a  blunder  to  omit  the  tes- 
timony of  Mrs.  Eddy  as  to  her  experiments  with 


102      ''CHEISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE" 

homeopathy.  She  says  that  she  has  attenuated  com- 
mon table  salt  until  there  was  not  a  single  saline 
property  left;  and  yet  with  one  drop  of  that  in  a 
goblet  of  water,  and  a  teaspoonf  ul  administered  every 
three  hours,  she  has  cured  a  patient  sinking  in  the 
last  stage  of  typhoid  fever.  Describing  a  case  of 
dropsy  given  up  by  the  faculty,  she  says  that  after 
giving  some  medicines  of  high  attenuation,  she  gave 
the  patient  unmedicated  pellets  for  a  while,  and  found 
that  she  continued  to  improve.  Finally  she  induced 
the  patient  to  give  up  her  medicine  for  one  day,  and 
risk  the  effects.  After  trying  this,  she  informed  Mrs. 
Eddy  that  she  could  get  along  two  days  without  the 
globules;  but  on  the  third  day  had  to  take  them. 
8he  went  on  in  this  way,  taking  unmedicated  pellets, 
with  occasional  visits  from  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  employing 
no  other  means  was  cured.  Thus  Mrs.  Eddy  says  she 
discovered  that  mind  was  potent  over  matter  and  that 
drugs  have  no  power. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  the  above  that  homeo- 
pathic remedies,  which  have  been  modified  by  the 
discoveries  made  and  the  experience  attained  since 
the  time  of  Hahnemann,  are  generally  powerless. 
That  question  is  not  essential  to  this  inquiry.  But 
the  confession  of  Mrs.  Eddy  that  her  experiments 
were  the  means  of  teaching  her  that  mind  and  not 
matter  effects  the  cure,  will  be  regarded  by  all  who 
do  not  accept  her  theories  as  containing  the  principal 
key  to  the  problem.  She  made  the  common  error  of 
generalizing  from  a  few  particulai's,  and  ever  since 
has  endeavored  to  test  facts  by  theory  instead  of 
making  facts  the  test.  Because  she  found  a  supposed 
mental  cause  adequate  to  a  cure  in  a  few  cases,  she 
leaped  to  the  wild  conclusion  that  all  causes  are  men- 
tal. Notwithstanding  these  numerous  absurdities  and 
the  radical  error,  i1^ would  be  unwise  to  lose  sight  of  the 


''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE'^  AND  "MIND  CURE"      103 

specific  elements  in  the  practice  of  Christian  Science 
and  the  various  forms  of  Mind  Cure  as  a  profession. 
The  patients  who  are  treated  by  these  practitioners 
have,  to  begin  with,  the  vis  medicatrix  naturce,  which 
is  the  final  element  in  every  cure,  recognized  to  be 
such  by  the  leaders  of  the  medical  profession  for  a 
long  period  of  time.  Sir  John  Forbes,  M.  D.,  one  of 
the  most  eminent  regular  physicians  of  England,  re- 
marks of  the  practice  of  his  ow^n  School  in  his  famous 
article  on  homeopathy : 

First,  that  in  a  large  proportion  of  the  cases  treated  by  allo- 
pathic physicians,  the  disease  is  cured  by  nature,  and  not  by 
them.  Second,  that  in  a  lesser  but  still  not  a  small  proportion, 
the  disease  is  cured  by  nature  in  spite  of  them  ;  in  other  words, 
their  interference  retarding  instead  of  assisting  the  cure.  Third, 
that  in,  consequently,  a  considerable  proportion  of  diseases  it 
would  fare  as  well  or  better  with  patients  if  all  remedies  —  at 
least  all  active  remedies,  especially  drugs— were  abandoned. 

Sydenham  long  ago  said,  "I  often  think  more 
could  be  left  to  Nature  than  we  are  in  the  hsibit  of 
leaving  to  her;  to  imagine  that  she  always  wants  the 
help  of  art  is  an  error,  and  an  unlearned  error  too." 

Sir  John  Marshall,  F.  R.  S.,  in  opening  the  session  of 
the  London  University  Medical  School  in  1865,  said, 

The  vis  medicatrix  naturcB  is  the  agent  to  employ  in  the  heal- 
ing of  an  ulcer,  or  the  union  of  a  broken  bone  ;  and  it  is  equally 
true  that  the  physician  or  surgeon  never  cured  a  disease ;  he 
only  assists  the  natural  processes  of  cure  performed  by  the  in- 
trinsic conservative  energy  of  the  frame,  and  this  is  but  the  ex- 
tension of  the  force  imparted  at  the  origination  of  the  individual 
being. 

Under  the  Mind  Cure  this  force  of  nature  is  still  at 
work,  and  in  the  great  number  of  self -limited  dis- 
eases which  tend  to  recovery,  it  is  left  free  from  all 
error  of  practitioners.     If  it  loses  any  advantages 


104       ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

which  the  introduction  of  the  proper  drugs  might 
give,  it  is  saved  from  the  consequences  of  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  wrong  ones. 

The  number  of  instances  in  which  the  prescriptions 
interfere  with  nature  is  so  great  that  Dr.  Paris  wi-ote, 
many  years  ago,  ''The  file  of  every  apothecary  would 
furnish  a  volume  of  instances  where  the  ingredients 
of  the  prescription  were  fighting  together  in  the  dark. 
This  is  especially  true  of  diseases  of  children.  The 
late  Dr.  Marshall  Hall  said,  ''  Of  the  whole  number 
of  fatal  cases  of  diseases  in  infancy,  a  great  propor- 
tion occur  from  the  inappropriate  or  undue  applica- 
tion of  exhausting  remedies.'' 

Further,  those  who  are  treated  by  the  Mind  Curers 
in  many  cases  derive  benefit  from  the  freedom  of  diet, 
air,  and  exercise  allowed.  They  are  told  to  pay  no 
attention  to  symptoms,  think  nothing  whatever  about 
their  diseases,  and  not  talk  about  them ;  to  eat,  sleep, 
drink,  and  act  as  nearly  as  possible  as  if  they  were 
well;,  and  in  a  large  majority  of  chronic  diseases,  this 
is  all  that  is  needed  to  produce  a  return  to  health. 

They  have  also  the  benefits  of  faith  and  fancy; 
as  they  are  taught  to  imagine  healthy,  vigorous 
organs,  and  their  whole  bodies  in  the  condition  of 
health,  and  with  such  mental  pictures  to  drive  away 
all  consciousness  of  symptoms,  they  summon  to  their 
aid  that  most  potent  of  all  influences,  a  calm  and  fear- 
less mind.  The  presence  of  the  practitioner  and  her 
methods  greatly  contribute  to  this  calming  influence. 

She  enters  with  a  cheerful  air  and,  without  taking  your  hand 
or  approaching  your  bed,  seats  herself  and  asks  you  to  tell  her 
all  your  symptoms.  [She  may,  however,  belong  to  the  class 
which  will  not  allow  any  description  of  symptoms.]  She  re- 
ceives your  budget  of  ailments  calmly,  without  one  expression 
of  sympathy,  for  she  has  none,  considering  all  your  maladies 
as  an  illusion  or  dream  from  which  it  is  her  divine  mission  to 


''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE"       105 

awaken  you.  You  are  made  to  feel,  immediately,  that  there  is 
little  of  cousequeuce  in  all  that  you  have  been  telling  her.  She 
then  relapses  into  a  silence  of  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  in  which 
her  kind  face  wears  a  resolute  expression,  making  it  almost 
stern.  .  .  ,  After  this  silent  treatment  she  speaks  to  you  in 
the  most  encouraging  manner,  endeavoring  to  call  you  away 
from  yourself  to  the  contemplation  of  spiritual  truth. 

A  point  of  difference  between  Faith  Healers  and 
Mind  Curers  is  worthy  of  observation.  Faith  Heal- 
ers require  the  patient  to  have  faith  j  Mind  Curers 
make  a  boast  of  the  fact  that  faith  is  not  necessary. 
A  close  analysis,  however,  shows  that  this  boast  is 
vain.  Before  they  are  sent  for  there  is  usually  some 
faith,  and  often  much,  combined  with  a  distrust  of 
other  systems.  This  was,  as  some  of  their  authorities 
affirm,  the  case  when  they  began.  Sufficient  time  has 
elapsed  to  develop  a  constituency  who  employ  no  other 
methods.  If  there  is  no  faith,  there  must  be  a  distrust 
of  other  forms  of  practice,  or  there  would  be  no  reason 
for  turning  to  the  new.  Where  there  is  no  faith  on 
the  part  of  the  patient,  usually  his  friends  believe,  and 
have  induced  him  to  make  the  experiment.  Thus  he  is 
surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  of  faith  which  is  so  im- 
portant that  all  the  writers  attach  great  weight  to  it. 

Friends  and  attendants  who  are  believers  in  Mental  cure,  and 
know  what  sort  of  a  mental  atmosphere  is  favorable  to  restor- 
ing health,  may  do  much  to  help  the  metaphysician  in  his  work. 
But,  unfortunately,  this  is  seldom  the  case  ;  and  the  friends  are 
usually  ignorant  on  the  subject,  and  innocently  burdening  the 
invalid  with  just  that  kind  of  hurtful  sympathy  which  keeps 
him  under  a  cloud  of  depression.  When  such  is  the  case,  their 
absence  is  more  helpful  than  their  presence,  and  it  is  desirable 
to  be  alone  with  the  patient  while  treating  him. —  Marston. 

Some  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  they  should  be, 
if  possible,  removed  from  the  society  of  those  who  do 
not  believe. 


106       ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

But  a  favorable  atmosphere  exists  to  some  extent 
among  those  who  have  induced  an  unbelieving  inva- 
lid to  send  for  a  mental  healer.  Assuming  that  the 
healer  has  arrived,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  faith  is  en- 
gendered. She  takes  her  seat,  and  after  a  few  unim- 
portant questions  becomes  silent.  The  thoughts  that 
wrander  through  the  mind  of  the  invalid,  as  told  me 
by  a  patient  of  thorough  intelligence,  an  alumnus  of 
one  of  the  first  universities  of  this  country,  were  such 
as  these:  ^'Can  there  be  anything  in  this"?  I  don't 
believe  there  is,  and  yet  a  great  many  people  are  be- 
lieving in  it,  and  some  most  wonderful  cures  have 

taken  place.     There  is  Mrs. .     I  hioiv  that  she 

was  given  up  to  die  by  our  best  physicians,  and  I 
Itnoiv  that  she  is  well."  Then  the  eye  will  turn  to 
the  face  of  the  metaphysician,  who  seems  looking  at 
far-off  things  and  wrestling  with  some  problem  not 
yet  solved,  but  of  the  certainty  of  the  solution  of 
w^hich  she  has  no  doubt.  Sometimes  the  practition- 
ers cover  their  eyes,  and  this  would  add  to  the  effect 
in  many  temperaments.  The  fifteen  minutes  pass 
and  leave  the  unbeliever  passive ;  as  a  quotation  else- 
where describes  it,  '4ess  cantankerous." 

The  encouraging  words  of  the  healer  on  departing 
are  not  without  effect,  differing  as  they  do  from  the 
uncertain  or  preter naturally  solemn  forthgivings,  or 
ill-concealed  misgivings,  of  many  ordinary  physi- 
cians. There  are  no  medicines  to  take,  no  symptoms 
to  watch,  and  only  the  certainty  of  recovery  to  be 
dwelt  upon.  Whatever  the  appetite  calls  for  is  to 
be  eaten  without  anxiety  as  to  the  consequences,  and 
if  there  be  no  appetite  there  is  to  be  no  eating  and  no 
anxiety  as  to  the  result  of  abstinence. 

The  effect  of  the  treatment  having  been  pleasant, 
the  patient  rather  longs  than  otherwise  for  the  next 
day  to  come,  and  for  the  next.     If  the  disease  be  one 


^'CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"      107 

that  under  ordinary  circumstances  would  require  an 
operation,  the  dreadful  image  of  the  surgeon's  knife 
no  longer  appals  the  patient's  mind.  The  invalid 
discovers  that  he  does  not  die,  that  he  sleeps  a  little 
better;  certainly  he  is  not  aroused  to  take  medicine, 
and  there  is  no  fear  that  he  will  take  cold;  he  feels 
decidedly  better  at  the  next  visit,  and  now  faith  is 
not  only  born  but  turned  into  sight.  His  friends 
assure  him  that  he  is  better,  and  he  tells  them  that 
he  is  so. 

Perhaps  the  most  potent  cause  in  awakening  faith 
is  the  sublime  audacity  displayed  by  the  practitioner 
who  dares  to  dispense  with  drugs,  manipulation,  hy- 
giene, prayer,  and  religious  ceremony.  That  spec- 
tacle would  infallibly  produce  either  such  opposition 
and  contempt  as  would  result  in  the  termination  of 
the  experiment,  or  faith.  It  is  impossible  to  be  in  a 
negative  position  in  its  presence,  where  the  responsi- 
bilities of  life  and  death  are  assumed. 

As  for  "  absent  treatments,"  these  are  based  on  the 
theory  that  to  think  of  another  entirely  and  abstract- 
edly occasions  a  spiritual  presence  of  that  other. 
^'  Distance  is  annihilated,  and  his  living  image  and 
inner  personality  seem  to  stand  before  us,  and  what 
we  say  to  it  we  say  to  him." 

These  persons  catch  up  and  incorporate  with  their 
theories  the  yet  immature  investigations  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research,  in  which  it  is  claimed 
that  a  sensitive  subject  can  form  in  the  mind  a  dis- 
tinct mental  picture  or  idea  of  words  and  letters 
which  had  been  in  the  mind  of  an  agent.  Healers 
endeavor  to  extend  those  phenomena  so  as  to  make 
them  annihilate  space;  and,  according  to  them,  '^it 
is  as  easy  to  affect  a  person  in  the  interior  of  Africa 
by  a  mental  influence,  as  in  the  same  room."  Here 
they  afaiiate  with  the  whole  mass  of  superstitions 


108      ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE" 

which  accumulated  in  the  early  history  of  the  human 
race,  and  reappear  in  certain  temperaments  in  each 
generation.  Whether  such  a  thing  as  thought-trans- 
ference exists,  there  is  not  space  here  to  inquire;  nor 
is  it  necessary,  for  the  effects  of  the  ^'  absent  treat- 
ment,'^ so  called,  can  all  be  accounted  for  without  any 
such  assumption. 

Patients  thus  treated  Tiuow  or  they  do  not  know 
that  they  are  being  treated.  When  they  know,  there 
is  nothing  to  explain,  for  it  is  the  same  as  if  patient 
and  practitioner  were  in  each  other's  presence.  All 
the  mental  operations,  as  well  as  the  original  force  of 
nature,  proceed  under  the  conviction  that  they  are 
being  treated  by  a  mental  healer.  If  they  do  not 
know  the  entire  field  of  coincidence  and  the  vis  medi- 
catrix  naturce  remain  inviolate;  and  to  determine  that 
there  is  any  connection  between  the  alleged  treat- 
ment and  the  change  in  the  condition  of  the  patient 
would  require  a  vast  number  of  cases  and  detailed 
coincidence  of  time  and  symptom,  for  which  these 
practitioners  do  not  display  ability,  and  for  which,  on 
their  own  testimony,  they  have  had  no  opportunity. 
Indeed,  their  theories  are  such  as  to  make  all  investi- 
gation superfluous  and  tedious. 

The  case  upon  which  Mrs.  Eddy  appears  to  rely  is 
described  thus:  "  The  day  you  received  my  husband's 
letter  I  became  conscious  for  the  first  time  in  forty- 
eight  hours."  What  can  this  prove?  What  evidence 
is  there  that  she  would  not  have  become  conscious  if 
the  letter  had  never  been  written?  If  she  were  ever 
to  come  out  of  an  unconscious  state  and  recover,  it 
must  be  at  some  time.  The  coincidence  of  Mrs.  Eddy's 
receiving  a  letter  from  the  husband  does  not  show 
any  connection  between  the  two  facts,  for  such  letters 
have  been  sent  and  the  patients  have  died.  To  my 
personal  knowledge  her  treatments  have  failed,  and 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  "AND  "MIND  CURE"      109 

her  predictions  have  not  been  fulfilled,  the  patient 
dying  in  excruciating  agony.  Instances  which  have 
occurred,  and  can  be  reproduced  at  any  time,  of  the 
attempted  absent  treatment  of  persons  ivlio  never  ex- 
isted, are  numerous;  for  there  is  not  one  of  this  class  of 
healers  that  cannot  be  so  imposed  upon.  This  is  suf- 
ficient to  raise  a  powerful  presumption  that  the  spir- 
itual presence  which  they  evoke,  and  to  which  they 
speak,  is  "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of." 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  they  make  more 
cures  than  any  bungler  or  extremist  of  a  school 
using  drugs  would  expect.  But  their  failures  are 
numerous,  and,  like  faith  healers,  they  never  pub- 
lish these.  Compelled,  however,  to  admit  this,  the 
chancellor  of  the  University  of  the  Science  of  Spirit 
says : 

Our  inability  to  heal  instantaneously  as  they  (Jesus  and  the 
Apostles)  are  recorded  to  have  done,  is  attributable  to  our  de- 
ficiency in  the  realization  of  the  doctrine.  While  we  claim  that 
OUT  theory  of  healing  is  applicable  to  all  diseases,  we  do  not 
claim  to  possess  sufficient  understanding  in  it  at  the  present 
time  to  heal  all  diseases  instantaneously,  neither  would  we  now 
guarantee  to  cure  certain  diseases,  such  as  cancer  or  consump- 
tion in  the  last  stages.  Of  one  thing,  however,  we  are  confident, 
i.  e.,  that  we  can  do  more  good  in  all  cases  of  illness  than  can 
be  done  with  any  other  theory,  or  with  materia  medica. — Arens. 

They  are  rather  more  successful  than  faith  healers 
for  this  reason :  with  the  faith  healers  it  is  generally 
either  an  instantaneous  cure,  or  none  at  all.  And  an 
instantaneous  cure  cannot  be  made  to  apply  to  a  great 
many  cases,  and  what  is  supposed  to  be  such  is  very 
frequently  a  delusion  followed  by  a  complete  relapse. 
The  Christian  Scientists,  however,  and  their  conge- 
ners make  many  visits  and  give  nature  a  much  better 
opportunity  without  the  destruction  of  the  patient's 
faith  in  them  by  a  failure  at  a  critical  juncture ;  thus 


110       "CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND   CURE" 

it  happens  that  the  proportion  of  recoveries  is  more 
numerous. 

The  principal  practical  element  has  been  more  or 
less  recognized  and  employed  by  the  greatest  physi- 
cians of  every  school  through  the  whole  history  of 
medical  practice,  as  well  as  by  quacks  and  supersti- 
tious pagan  priests.  *'  The  History  of  Medical  Econ- 
omy during  the  Middle  Ages,"  by  George  F.  Fort, 
contains  numerous  illustrations  of  this  subject, 
though  adduced  for  another  purpose,  and,  unlike 
many  other  treatises,  giving  the  authorities  with 
most  painstaking  accuracy. 

Dr.  Rush,  of  whom  Dr.  Tuke  affirms  that  few 
physicians  have  had  more  practical  experience  of 
disease,  says: 

I  have  frequently  prescribed  remedies  of  doubtful  efficacy  in 
the  critical  stage  of  acute  diseases,  but  never  till  I  had  worked 
up  my  patients  into  a  confidence  bordering  upon  certainty  of 
their  probable  good  effects.  The  success  of  this  measure  has 
much  oftener  answered  than  disappointed  my  expectations. 

The  "  British  and  Foreign  Medical  Review  ^  for 
January,  1846,  whose  editor  then  was  Sir  John  Forbes, 
contained  an  article  written  by  himself  which  encour- 
ages '^  the  administration  of  simple,  feeble,  and  alto- 
gether powerless,  non-perturbing  medicines,  in  all 
cases  in  which  drugs  are  prescribed  pro  forma,  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  patient's  mind,  and  not  with 
the  view  of  producing  any  direct  remedial  effect.'' 

''  Physic  and  Physicians,"  published  in  1839,  speak- 
ing of  the  celebrated  and  extraordinarily  successful 
Dr.  Radcliffe,  who  was  the  founder  of  the  Radcliffe 
Library  at  Oxford  University,  and  died  in  1714,  says 
that  he  paid  particular  attention  to  the  mind  of  the 
patient  under  his  care,  and  had  been  heard  to  say 
that  he  attributed  much  of  his  success  and  eminence 


"CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE"  AND   ''IMIND  CURE"      111 

to  this  circumstance.     There  is  a  very  good  anecdote 
Ulustrating  his  views  upon  this  subject : 

A  lady  of  rank  consulted  Radcliffe  in  great  distress  about  her 
daughter,  and  the  doctor  began  the  investigation  of  the  case  by 
asking,  *'Why,  what  ails  her?"  "Alas!  doctor,"  replied  the 
mother,  "I  cannot  tell;  but  she  has  lost  her  humor,  her  looks, 
her  stomach ;  her  strength  consumes  every  day,  and  we  are 
apprehensive  that  she  canuot  live."  "  Why  do  you  not  maiTy 
her?"  said  Radeliffe.  "Alas!  doctor,  that  we  would  fain  do, 
and  have  offered  her  as  good  a  match  as  ever  she  could  expect." 
"  Is  there  no  other  that  you  think  she  would  be  content  to 
marry?"  "Ah,  doctor,  that  is  what  troubles  us;  for  there  is  a 
young  gentleman  we  doubt  she  loves,  that  her  father  and  I  can 
never  consent  to."  "Why,  look  you,  madam,"  replied  Radeliffe 
gravely,  "  then  the  case  is  this  :  your  daughter  would  marry 
one  man,  and  you  would  have  her  marry  another.  In  all  my 
books  I  find  no  remedy  for  such  a  disease  as  this." 

This  principle  has  also  been  employed  by  certain 
priests  and  clergymen  of  every  sect.  A  young  wo- 
man, a  teacher,  was,  as  she  believed  and  as  her  friends 
supposed,  at  the  point  of  death.  Her  physician  was 
not  quite  certain  that  she  was  as  ill  as  she  seemed, 
and  requested  the  pastor  to  assist  him  in  breaking 
up  her  delusion  that  she  must  die.  He  attempted  it, 
but  she  refused  to  hear  him,  and  intrusted  him  with 
messages  for  her  friends,  especially  for  her  class  in 
the  Sunday  School.  When  about  to  bid  her  fare- 
well, he  informed  her  that  he  would  return  in  the 
afternoon;  she  replied  that  she  would  like  him  to 
pray  with  her,  but  that  it  was  useless  to  ask  for  her 
recovery.  Having  in  view  her  hearing  what  he  had 
to  say,  he  prayed  in  such  a  way  as  to  break  the  spell 
and  cause  her  to  believe  that  she  would  recover  -,  as  he 
did  this,  the  morbid  symptoms  of  approaching  death 
gave  way,  and  she  is  still  living. 

Another  case  was  still  more  remarkable.  A  woman, 
ill  and  bedridden,  conceived  a  high  regard  for  the 


112       ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE" 

piety  and  intelligence  of  her  pastor.  He  entered  her 
room  and  in  a  loud  and  solemn  voice  said,  *'  I  com- 
mand you  to  arise!"  Involuntarily  she  arose  and 
resumed  the  duties  of  housekeeping,  which  after  the 
lapse  of  ten  years  she  still  performs. 

A  Roman  Catholic  priest,  of  high  position  in  his 
church,  told  the  writer  that  he  thought  he  had  saved 
scores  of  lives  by  refusing  to  administer  the  Sacra- 
ment of  Extreme  Unction,  which  led  the  patients  to 
say  "Father does  not  think  I  am  going  to  die." 

In  1832,  when  the  cholera  raged  in  Norfolk,  Virginia, 
Dr.  Buzzell,  a  physician  of  great  local  celebrity,  lived 
there.  He  was  driving  night  and  day,  and  on  one  oc- 
casion was  summoned  to  see  a  stalwart  negro  who 
was  apparently  in  the  state  of  collapse.  Instead  of 
beginning  at  once  to  treat  him,  he  accused  him  of 
shamming,  denounced  and  derided  him  in  every  pos- 
sible way  for  calling  him  when  he  was  at  work  night 
and  day,  driven  almost  to  death.  Then,  assuming 
the  appearance  of  intense  excitement,  he  procured  a 
switch  and  began  to  thrash  the  negro  very  severely. 
The  more  he  groaned,  and  the  more  he  said  he  was 
dying,  the  more  Dr.  Buzzell  thrashed  him,  and  with 
his  threatenings  and  beatings  brought  on  such  a  tre- 
mendous reaction  that  the  man  recovered. 

In  a  visit  to  a  branch  of  the  Oneida  Community  at 
Wallingford,  in  185G,  I  asked  Mrs.  Miller,  the  sister 
of  John  H.  Noyes,  the  founder  of  the  community, 
what  they  did  if  any  of  the  inmates  became  ill,  as 
they  repudiated  medicines.  She  said  they  had  very 
little  sickness.  "  But,  have  I  not  heard  of  an  epidemic 
of  diphtheria  among  you?"  She  said  there  had  been, 
but  by  their  treatment  they  saved  every  case.  "What 
was  that  treatment"?"  "  It  was  treatment  by  criticism." 
"How  was  it  applied?"  "So  soon  as  a  person  was 
taken  ill,  a  committee  was  appointed  who  went  into 


''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   *'MIND  CURE"      113 

the  room  and  sat  down,  paying  no  attention  to  the 
patient;  they  began  at  once  to  speak  about  him  or 
her,  criticizing  the  patient's  peculiarities,  bringing 
every  defect  to  the  surface,  and  unsparingly  condemn- 
ing it."  Mrs.  Miller  added  that  no  one  could  endure 
this  more  than  an  hour.  The  mental  and  moral  irri- 
tation was  so  great  that  they  began  to  perspire  and 
invariably  recovered.  The  universal  efficacy  of  this 
method  may  well  be  doubted,  for  many  persons  live 
in  such  an  atmosphere  that  if  that  treatment  would 
save  them,  they  would  never  die;  while  others  are  so 
callous  to  all  criticism  that  the  remedy  would  be  with- 
out effect. 

In  a  certain  lunatic  asylum  was  a  patient,  a  very 
attractive  young  lady,  whose  delusion  took  the  form 
that  she  was  specially  called  of  God  to  do  some  great 
work  which  had  not  yet  been  indicated  to  her.  With 
this  were  connected  several  pernicious  practices,  such 
as  fasting,  excessive  prayer,  and  others  of  similar 
character.  The  asylum  physicians  were  very  much 
interested  in  her,  but  the  months  passed  away  and 
she  did  not  improve. 

At  last  one  of  the  assistant  physicians,  especially 
interested  in  the  influence  of  the  mind  upon  the 
body,  determined  npon  a  plan  to  effect  her  cure  by 
a  powerful  mental  operation.  Accordingly,  he  in- 
troduced a  tube  into  her  room,  without  her  know- 
ledge, and  also  prepared  a  calcium  light  so  that,  at 
a  certain  time,  he  could  flood  the  room  with  rays  of 
intense  brilliancy. 

The  young  woman  had  not  walked  a  step  for  many 
months.  At  the  appointed  hour,  with  all  the  physi- 
cians standing  in  the  hall,  and  the  wife  of  the  physician 
in  chief — a  thoroughly  Christian  woman,  intensely 
sympathetic  with  the  patient — also  with  them,  the  phy- 
sician spoke  through  the  tube  in  the  name  of  the  Lord^ 


114      ''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

informing  the  girl  that  He  had  heard  her  prayers, 
that  she  should  soon  be  sent  upon  her  mission,  and 
that  she  should  go  forth  from  the  place  to  her  own 
home  to  testify  to  His  glory.  At  the  same  instant 
that  the  voice  was  heard,  the  room  was  flooded  with  a 
light  much  brighter  than  the  sun  at  noonday. 

Her  face,  with  the  utmost  simplicity  of  faith,  w^as 
lighted  up  with  a  joy  that  seemed  too  great  for  mor- 
tal; and  those  who  were  situated  where  they  could 
see  it,  declared  that  hardly  ever  in  their  lives  had 
they  seen  such  an  expression  of  seraphic  bliss. 

Of  course,  great  interest  centered  in  the  conduct  of 
the  young  woman  the  next  morning.  She  said  not  a 
word  to  a  human  being  upon  her  vision,  but  in  the 
morning  rose  and  walked  the  entire  length  of  the 
hall,  and  continued  to  improve  in  physical  and  men- 
tal health  till  discharged  from  the  asylum  as  practi- 
cally cured. 

Our  informant,  an  oflicial  of  the  institution,  of  en- 
tire credibility,  has  not  heard  from  her  for  some  time; 
but,  up  to  a  recent  period,  she  remained  in  good 
health. 

This  is  an  instance  of  cure  effected  by  the  opera- 
tion of  the  mind  upon  the  body,  as  extraordinary  as 
any  instance  of  cure  which  can  be  adduced  by  Faith 
Healers  or  Christian  Scientists. 

The  nervous  ^^temperament"  or  condition  of  the 
healer  appears  to  be  of  no  special  importance;  that 
is,  it  is  of  importance  only  in  the  same  sense  that  it  is 
to  salesmen,  public  speakers,  school-teachers,  lawyers, 
sea-captains,  detectives,  military  leaders,  physicians, 
and  all  who  impress  themselves  upon  others.  I  have 
seen  successful  healers  thin  and  tall;  others  short  and 
fat;  some  pale,  others  florid;  some  intelligent,  others 
unintelligent;  some  intellectual,  more  only  intelli- 
gent; some  in  good  health,  others  diseased;  one  of 


"CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND  "MIND  CURE"      115 

the  best  was  so  feeble  as  to  seem  on  the  verge  of 
death.i 

The  specimen  mental  treatment  given  on  page  257 
shows  how  the  practitioner  worked  herself  up  to  the 
point;  and  it  is  easy  to  fancy  how  forcibly  she  spoke 
when  a  surge  of  conviction  that  seemed  to  act  on  all 
the  blood-vessels  of  her  body  and  made  her  tingle  all 
over,  went  through  her;  and  it  is  equally  easy  to 
imagine  the  effect  upon  the  patient. 

The  relation  of  the  Mind  Cure  movement  to  ordi- 
nary medical  practice  is  important.  It  emphasizes 
what  the  most  philosophical  physicians  of  all  schools 
have  always  deemed  of  the  first  importance,  though 
many  have  neglected  it.  It  teaches  that  medicine  is 
but  occasionally  necessary.  It  hastens  the  time  when 
patients  of  discrimination  wiU  rather  pay  more  for 
advice  how  to  live,  and  for  frank  declarations  that 
they  do  not  need  medicine,  than  for  drugs.  It  pro- 
motes general  reliance  upon  those  processes  which  go 
on  equally  in  health  and  disease. 

But  these  ethereal  practitioners  have  no  new  force 
to  offer ;  there  is  no  causal  connection  between  their 
cures  and  their  theories. 

What  they  believe  has  practically  nothing  to  do 
with  their  success.    If  a  new  school  were  to  arise 

1  In  practice  it  seems  to  be  more  difficult  to  successfully  treat 
one's  self  than  to  treat  another  person.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that,  when  personally  under  the  influence  of  supposed  disease, 
the  appeal  of  the  senses  is  more  forcible  than  when  the  decep- 
tion shows  itself  in  another.  But  that  one  can  conquer  the  re- 
sults of  his  own  inverted  thinking,  there  is  not  the  slightest 
occasion  to  doubt.  ...  We  must  not,  however,  make  the 
mistake  of  supposing  that  he  who  would  attempt  to  brmg  heal- 
ing to  others  must  first  be  sound  himself.  ...  The  effect 
of  a  treatment  depends  not  on  its  length,  but  on  the  condition 
of  the  healer  who  exercises  it,  and  the  dynamic  power  of  the 
thought  exerted.  —  Marston. 


116       '' CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   ''MIND  CURE" 

claiming  to  heal  diseases  without  drugs  or  hygiene, 
or  prayer,  by  the  hypothetical  odylic  force  invented 
by  Baron  Reichenbach,  the  effects  would  be  the  same, 
if  the  practice  were  the  same. 

Recoveries  as  remarkable  have  been  occurring 
through  all  the  ages,  as  the  results  of  mental  states 
and  nature's  own  powers. 

They  will  not  be  able  to  displace  either  the  skilled 
surgeon  or  the  educated  physician;  for  their  arro- 
gant and  exclusive  pretensions  are  of  the  nature  of  a 
"  craze."  Most  sensible  persons  will  prefer  a  physician 
who  understands  both  the  mind  and  the  body ;  who 
can  be  a  "  father  confessor "  to  the  sick  man,  reliev- 
ing him  of  the  responsibility  of  treating  himself, 
quieting  his  mind,  strengthening  him  by  hope,  and 
stimulating  him  by  his  personal  presence  5  one  who,  un- 
derstanding the  mineral,  plant,  and  animal  substances 
included  in  the  materia  medica,  can  assist  nature,  in- 
terfering only  when  absolutely  necessary  and  certainly 
safe;  too  learned  and  honest,  when  not  knowing  what 
to  do,  ever  to  do  he  knows  not  what. 

They  will  also  prefer  a  physician  who  can  relieve 
their  pains  when  incurable,  smooth  their  pathway  to 
the  inevitable  end,  or,  when  he  has  the  happiness  to 
see  them  convalescent,  will  be  able  to  give  them  such 
hygienic  hints  as  may  prevent  a  recurrence  of  the 
malady,  or  save  them  from  something  worse. 

The  verdict  of  mankind,  excepting  minds  prone  to 
vagaries  on  the  borderland  of  insanity,  will  be  that 
pronounced  by  Ecclesiasticus  more  than  two  thousand 
years  ago : 

"  The  Lord  hath  created  medicines  out  of  the 
earth ;  and  he  that  is  wise  vhll  not  abhor  them. 

My    SON,  IN    THY   SICKNESS    BE   NOT   NEGLIGENT;    BUT 
PRAY    UNTO    THE    LORD,    AND    HE    WLIAj    MAKE    THEE 

WHOLE.  Leave  off  from  sin,  and  order  thy  hands 


''CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE"  AND   "MIND  CURE"      117 

ARIGHT,  AND  CLEANSE  THY  HEART  FROM  ALL  WICKED- 
NESS. Then  give  place  to  the  physician,  for  the 
Lord  hath  created  him  :  let  him  not  go  from 
thee,  for  thou  hast  need  of  him.  There  is  a 
time  when  in  their  hands  there  is  good  success. 
For  they  shall  also  pray  unto  the  Lord,  that 
he  would  prosper  that  which  they  give  for  ease 
and  to  prolong  life." 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER 

RECENT    FAILURES  OF   CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE  AND  FAITH 
HEALING 

FOR  some  time  after  Christian  Science  arose,  the 
number  of  believers  being  comparatively  small, 
there  were  not  many  deaths ;  and,  except  among  aged 
persons  or  during  an  epidemic  of  some  unusually 
fatal  malady,  there  is  never  a  large  relative  proportion 
of  deaths  among  adults  in  any  period  of  a  few  years. 
The  life-table  for  England  and  Wales  (Supplement  to 
Fifty-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Registrar-General, 
1895)  states  that  of  one  million  persons  born,  737,617 
live  to  the  age  of  seventeen,  and  427,497  to  the  age  of 
sixty.  This  table  was  based  on  the  mortality  of  the 
ten  years  1881-90. 

Nineteen  years  ago  I  collected  vital  statistics  of  vari- 
ous communistic  institutions,  and  of  small  cities  and 
towns,  and  on  the  basis  of  the  results  of  the  experi- 
ments I  predicted  that,  should  Christian  Science  at 
any  time  begin  to  spread  rapidly,  or  should  anti-medi- 
cine Faith  Healing  institutions  be  largely  increased, 
the  number  of  deaths  would  attract  public  attention, 
and  indignation  would  be  excited  by  failures  to  heal 
maladies  which  ordinarily  yield  to  medical  or  surgical 
treatment.  This  has  come  to  pass,  and  scarcely  a 
paper  can  be  taken  up  which  does  not  contain  an  ac- 
count of  persons  dying,  often  in  great  agony,  who 
have  not  been  attended  by  any  one  who  has  devoted 
his  life  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  of  the  human 


120  SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER 

system,  the  action  of  remedies,  and  the  most  skilful 
methods  of  imparting  the  aid  which  science  can  give. 

A  large  correspondence,  stimulated  by  the  publica- 
tion of  these  articles,  leads  me  to  conclude  that  but  a 
small  proportion  of  such  deaths  comes  to  the  notice  of 
the  pubUc.  Only  occasionally,  when  physicians  refuse 
to  sign  a  certificate  of  death,  —  in  many  parts  of  the 
country  this  is  frequently  neglected,  —  is  attention  di- 
rected to  it.  Friends  of  the  deceased  are  often  so 
ashamed  of  having  adopted  a  view  which  in  the  esti- 
mation of  minds  well  informed  and  well  balanced  is 
absurd,  that  they  remain  silent.  Several  such  in- 
stances have  been  communicated  to  me  in  confidence. 

Christian  Scientists  and  Faith  Healers  make  great 
efforts  to  keep  unbelievers  from  the  sick-room,  in  the 
former  case  upon  the  theory  that  they  prevent  the 
patient's  understanding  the  principles  which  are  suffi- 
cient to  drive  sickness  away,  and  in  the  latter  that 
they  prevent  the  patient  from  exercising  faith;  hence 
it  is  difficult  to  obtain  legal  evidence  of  what  is  actu- 
ally done,  and  of  the  state  of  the  patient  at  any  par- 
ticular time.  The  assertion  is  often  made  that  "in 
any  case  the  patient  would  have  died,"  and  medical 
men  can  readily  be  found  to  plaster  the  scandal  with 
a  certificate.  Instances  have  occurred  of  summoning 
a  physician  and  securing  a  prescription  in  order  to  be 
able  to  say  that  one  was  called,  and  then  refusing  to 
administer  the  medicine. 


CONTRAST  BETWEEN  THE  FAILURES  AND   SUCCESSES 

OF  FAITH  HEALING  AND  CHRISTIAN   SCIENCE 

AND  THOSE   OF  PHYSICIANS 

Christian  Scientists  and  Faith  Healers  agree  in 
protesting  against  the  publication  of  their  failures, 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER  121 

alleging  that  if  those  of  the  medical  profession  were 
likewise  exploited  its  members  would  be  more  effec- 
tually discredited  than  are  they. 

This  protest  seems  plausible,  but  will  not  bear  ex- 
amination. Christian  Scientists  boast  of  millions  of 
cures  of  diseases  ordinarily  incurable.  In  the  brief 
period  of  a  fortnight  a  noted  lecturer  changed  the 
sum  total  from  "one  million"  to  "millions."  The  fol- 
lowers of  Mrs.  Eddy  deny  the  existence  of  disease; 
the  followers  of  Dowie  in  the  West  and  of  Simpson 
in  the  East  claim  that  the  power  of  Christ  is  exercised 
in  answer  to  their  prayers.  Dowie  rivals  the  Chris- 
tian Scientist  lecturers  in  boasting,  and  Simpson 
makes  claims  of  recoveries  little  less  miraculous  than 
would  be  the  raising  of  the  dead.  Their  failures  are 
incompatible  with  their  main  contention. 

In  contrast  with  these  self-deceivers  and  deceivers 
of  others  the  physician  knows  that  all  men  must  die, 
and  that  all  die  of  old  age,  disease,  accident,  or  inten- 
tional violence.  He  claims  by  hygiene,  medicine,  and 
surgery  to  assist  nature  in  the  struggle  to  delay  the 
inevitable  and  render  the  progress  to  it  more  endur- 
able. If  he  has  qualified  himself  by  the  acquisition 
of  all  available  learning  and  skill,  whether  the  pa- 
tients perfectly  recover  or  but  partly  recover,  whether, 
indeed,  the  patient  live  or  die,  the  physician  if  un- 
worthy is  amenable  only  to  the  charge  of  neglect  or 
malpractice. 

But  Christian  Scientists  contemptuously  reject  all 
the  knowledge  the  human  race  has  secured,  exclude 
from  the  sick-room  those  wiio  possess  it,  deny  that 
remedies  have  any  power,  and  cannot  consistently 
use  opiate  or  anesthetic,  the  greatest  boon  which  sci- 
ence has  conferred  on  man.  Their  anodyne  for  the 
agony  that  finds  expression  in  the  heartrending  cry 
is  the  reiteration,  "  There  is  no  disease,"  "  There  is  no 


122  SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER 

pain,"  "  Think  only  of  God,  not  as  person  but  as  prin- 
ciple." Faith  Healers  turn  from  what  God  has  en- 
dued with  healing  virtues,  from  what  even  the  instincts 
of  animals,  when  ill,  prompt  them  to  seek,  lest  the  use 
of  means  should  prevent  the  exercise  of  the  power  of 
God !  Those  who  promise  and  attempt  so  much  while 
rejecting  so  much  cannot  consistently  ask  indulgence. 
When  a  physician  or  surgeon  is  guilty  of  neglect 
or  malpractice,  the  victim,  or  in  case  of  death  his 
"  next  of  kin,"  or,  should  these  decline  to  demand  an  in- 
vestigation, the  authorities,  can  summon  the  accused 
physician  to  trial,  and  the  case  may  be  equitably  de- 
cided upon  what  he  has  done  or  has  neglected  to  do ; 
but  if  he  has  been  under  the  care  of  Christian  Scien- 
tists or  Faith  Healers  all  that  might  have  been  done 
was  intentionally  neglected. 


IMPORTANT  FACTS  CONCERNING  ALL  SICKNESSES 

That  many  sick  persons  would  recover  without 
treatment  of  any  kind  is  certain.  That  many  who 
would  not  recover  without  encouragement  will  do  so 
where  confidence  is  inspired  and  maintained  has  often 
been  demonstrated.  Christian  Scientists,  Faith  Heal- 
ers, Mind  Curers,  the  venders  of  pads  and  bogus  elec- 
trical apparatus,  of  alleged  magical  rings,  and  other 
forms  of  deception,  and  also  skilful  physicians,  receive 
the  benefit  of  all  such  cases,  and  adduce  them  to  per- 
suade the  people  to  accept  their  claims  and  services. 
That  many  who  are  hypochondriacal  and  hysterical 
would  be  well  if  they  could  be  made  to  think  they  are, 
and  to  act  accordingly,  is  beyond  doubt.  All  classes 
of  practitioners,  and  the  votaries  of  all  religions,  true 
and  false,  receive  the  benefit  of  such  recoveries,  the 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER  123 

cure  being  wrought  by  the  vital  force  which  preserves 
the  body  from  birth  till  death. 

But  there  are  diseases,  and  particular  instances  of 
almost  every  trifling  disease,  which  will  not  termi- 
nate if  left  to  themselves.  There  are  many  injuries 
which,  without  external  aid,  nature  never  did  and 
never  can  repair.  There  are  conditions  so  painful 
that,  though  the  disease  would  not  destroy  life,  the 
pain  will  surely  overthrow  reason  or  cause  death, 
unless  the  sense  of  it  can  be  deadened. 

Science  has  discovered  in  nature  simples,  or  ascer- 
tained how  to  form  compounds,  which,  properly  ad- 
ministered, will,  by  removing  obstructions  which  in- 
crease or  diminish  the  flow  of  blood,  assist  nature  to 
restore  health.  In  a  multitude  of  cases  where  the  vital 
force  contends  with  the  influence  of  poisons,  either  ex- 
ternally administered  or  engendered  within  the  body, 
or  where  vital  organs  are  deranged  or  obstructed,  or 
the  patient  is  in  such  a  mental  condition  that  Christian 
Scientists  and  Faith  Healers  could  render  no  encour- 
agement and  receive  no  cooperation,  science  working 
in  harmony  with  chemical  laws  and  animal  life,  and, 
when  necessary,  by  the  mechanical  art  of  sm'gery,  can 
and  does  succeed.  In  any  case  where  nature  unaided  is 
plainly  competent  to  throw  off  the  incubus,  whatever 
its  cause,  learned  and  skiKul  physicians  will  give  only 
that  which  alleviates  the  pain  of  symptoms,  and  will  de- 
pend upon  natural  force,  hygiene,  and  encouragement. 

Minds  so  constituted  as  to  accept  either  Christian 
Science  or  anti-medicine  Faith  Healing  can  listen 
unmoved  to  the  groans  of  the  sufferer,  and  by  con- 
stant incantations  of  words  encourage  him  to  hold  on 
and  not  "  betray  the  cause."  Christian  Scientists  can 
declare  that  dreadful  symptoms  are  only  "  chemical- 
ization." 1  Faith  Healers  can  charge  their  followers 
1  See  page  79. 


124  SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER 

with  want  of  faith,  threaten  them  with  damnation  and 
incite  them  to  almost  superhuman  efforts  to  believe. 
In  case  of  failure,  these  are  not  slow  to  intimate  that 
the  deceased  or  the  incurable  yielded  to  temptation  of 
the  devil,  and  fell  into  unbelief. 

Indians  in  their  wildest  dances  cannot  become 
more  insensible  to  the  pain  of  others  or  them- 
selves than  do  some  of  the  intellectual  fanatics  of 
the  present  day.  In  this  city,  a  woman  about  to 
become  a  mother,  believing  fully  in  one  of  these  delu- 
sions, sent  for  some  of  its  advocates.  Hour  after  hour 
her  pangs  increased  until  they  became  intolerable,  and 
she  exclaimed,  ''  Send  for  a  physician  !  '^  With  one 
accord  they  adjured  her  not  to  "  betray  the  cause."  For 
twelve  hours  she  shrieked  in  agony.  The  neighbors 
heard  and  threatened  to  summon  the  police.  A  phy- 
sician was  called.  The  room  was  vacated  by  all 
except  the  nurse  and  the  physician.  In  five  minutes, 
by  means  of  a  harmless  anesthetic,  her  pains  became 
endurable,  and  after  some  hours  of  constant  work 
the  danger  point  was  passed.  Then  the  physician 
summoned  those  fanatics,  and  told  them  to  give 
thanks  to  God  that  they  had  been  prevented  from 
committing  a  double  murder. 

So  completely  under  the  dominion  of  their  respec- 
tive fetishes  are  many  that  neither  death  nor  failm-e 
to  cure  depresses  them  in  the  least  degree. 

While  Christian  Science  and  anti-medicine  Faith 
Healing  are  alike  responsible  for  many  deaths  and  for 
suffering  that  might  have  been  prevented,  the  former 
has  been  the  indirect,  and  in  some  cases  the  direct, 
cause  of  a  number  of  cases  of  insanity.  If  the  theory 
of  Christian  Science  be  true,  the  use  of  food  should 
be  unnecessary.  Total  abstinence  from  food  beyond 
a  limited  period  produces  a  universal  disease  popu- 
larly known  as  starvation,  and  also  diseases  of  par- 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER  125 

ticular  organs,  and  other  maladies^  the  result  of  the 
want  of  force  for  the  performance  of  the  various 
excretory  and  other  functions  of  the  system,  the  sure 
end  of  which  is  death.  If  the  theory  of  Christian 
Science  be  true,  the  same  methods  which  cause  dis- 
ease originating  in  other  ways  to  disappear  should  be 
adequate  to  counterwork  the  effects  of  the  non-use 
of  food.  I  have  met  several  instances  of  Christian 
Scientists  who  have  carried  the  matter  to  the  length 
of  refusing  to  eat.  If  it  be  assumed  that  such  must 
have  been  insane  before  going  to  such  an  extreme, 
this  would  go  far  toward  proving  want  of  balance 
in  the  mind  that  could  accept  fundamental  proposi- 
tions from  which  this  course  is  a  logical  conse- 
quence. In  one  family  a  brother  and  two  sisters 
recently  became  demented,  and  were  removed  to  in- 
stitutions for  the  insane. 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE   PRACTICE  OF  CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE  AND   FAITH   HEALING  TO   CIVIL  LAW 

The  relation  of  this  subject  to  civil  law  is  begin- 
ning to  attract  the  attention  proportionate  to  its 
importance.  Physicians  have  been  slow  to  move,  lest 
they  should  be  charged  with  selfish  motives,  and  the 
clergy  have  been  comparatively  silent  concerning 
legal  restraints,  lest  they  should  seem  to  wish  to  inter- 
fere with  rights  of  conscience. 

The  theory  of  this  government  is  based  upon  the 
largest  degree  of  individual  freedom  compatible  with 
the  welfare  of  society.  These  eccentrics  claim  that 
non-use  of  medicine  is  a  part  of  their  religion.  So 
the  Mormons  claimed  that  polygamy  was  a  part  of 
their  religion.  Religious  freedom  implies  the  right 
to  think  what  one  pleases  j  but  this  cannot  justify 


126  SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER 

the  violation  of  laws  not  made  for  the  suppression  of 
religion,  but  for  the  protection  of  the  community. 
Hence  the  suppression  of  polygamy  received  the 
approbation  of  all  classes  excepting  those  who  prac- 
tised it. 

In  the  application  of  legal  restraint  the  law  forbids 
the  practice  of  healing  by  any  not  duly  licensed  upon 
examination  before  a  competent  and  legally  estab- 
lished board.  The  mere  fact  that  persons  do  not 
prescribe  medicine  is  not  sufficient  to  prove  that  they 
are  not  in  a  proper  sense  of  the  term  medical  practi- 
tioners. Hydropathists,  depending  entirely  upon  the 
internal  and  external  use  of  water,  together  with 
friction,  are  medical  practitioners.  Those  who  for 
pay  give  to  invalids  counsel  with  regard  to  health, 
whether  they  prescribe  medicine  or  not,  are  medi- 
cal practitioners.  No  one  can  compel,  and  no  law 
should  be  made  to  require,  a  sane  adult,  not  suffering 
from  a  contagious  disease,  to  take  medicine  if  he 
does  not  wish  to  do  so,  even  though  the  presumption 
be  that  he  might  derive  benefit  from  treatment,  and 
will  die  prematurely  if  he  does  not  submit  to  it.  But 
should  an  adult,  the  victim  of  an  acute  or  chronic 
disease,  sink  into  coma  or  become  delirious,  he  is  then 
a  proper  subject  for  interference,  if  those  in  charge 
of  him  refuse  to  call  medical  or  surgical  aid ;  for  irre- 
sponsible beings  are  the  wards  of  the  State. 

Instances  have  occurred  in  which  the  adult  while 
sane  called  for  medical  aid;  but  on  his  becoming 
delirious  his  relatives  have  discharged  the  physician 
and  summoned  Christian  Scientists  or  anti-medicine 
Faith  Healers.  It  is  self-evident  that  when  it  is  shown 
that  a  patient  receiving  no  treatment  has  become 
unconscious  or  delirious,  the  laAV  is  justified  in  inter- 
fering. 

Children  also  are  the  wards  of  the  State,  and  are 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER  127 

left  to  the  care  of  parents  when  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  them  unfaithful  to  the  trust,  or  incompetent 
to  fulfil  it.  If  credible  witnesses  testify  to  neglect 
or  incompetence,  the  State  is  justified  in  interfering. 
Therefore  if  parents  refuse  their  children  medical 
treatment  when  suffering  from  any  disease  which 
might  prove  fatal,  the  State  is  justified  at  least  in 
requiring  the  attendance  of  health-officers,  and  if  they 
believe  the  situation  critical,  in  enforcing  treatment. 

If  the  disease  be  contagious  the  State  should  take 
charge  of  the  patient,  and  require  that  he  be 
treated  by  those  methods  which  the  civilization  of 
the  age  approves,  and  this  not  only  for  the  sake 
of  the  sufferer,  but  of  the  thousands  who  are  liable  to 
contract  the  malady  if  it  is  not  promptly  cured  or  iso- 
lated. Compulsory  vaccination  is  an  illustration  of 
the  same  principle,  and  since  many  contagious  dis- 
eases are  distinguishable  only  by  expert  physicians 
when  there  is  any  reason  to  suspect  their  exis- 
tence, their  management  should  not  be  left  to  those 
who  on  principle  attach  no  importance  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  nature  of  any  disease,  their  methods 
being  the  same  whether  it  is  a  case  of  smallpox,  the 
bubonic  plague,  leprosy,  scarlet  fever,  diphtheria,  or 
a  simple  cold. 

To  check  the  tide  of  public  indignation  certain  prom- 
inent practitioners  of  Christian  Science  are  credited 
to  have  said  that,  '4f  in  four  or  five  hours"  they 
'^  produce  no  impression  upon  any  one  who  thinks 
that  he  is  ill,"  they  "  are  in  the  habit  of  recommend- 
ing that  a  physician  be  sent  for."  If  this  be  true,  the 
confession  of  weakness  and  inconsistency  is  pitiable, 
and  why  should  the  law  allow  persons  neither  quali- 
fied nor  licensed,  whose  theory  requires  them  to  ig- 
nore and  to  teach  patients  to  ignore  symptoms,  to 
decide  when  a  physician  should  be  called.     Others 


128  SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER 

have  avowed  that  they  "  take  no  fees,"  accepting  only 
what  the  patient  freely  gives.  This  is  analogous  to 
the  course  of  those  legislators  who  "  take  no  bribes," 
but  "  receive  only  the  free  gifts  of  personal  friends." 
In  the  eyes  of  the  law  they  are  "medical  practi- 
tioners" if  in  the  habit  of  responding  to  calls  for 
treatment. 

Where  laws  sufficient  to  deal  with  such  cases  as 
these  do  not  exist,  they  should  be  enacted,  and  where 
they  already  exist,  be  strictly  enforced.  The  sane 
adult  can  then  pursue  his  way,  the  cry  of  persecution 
will  have  no  foundation,  and  the  religious  cults  with 
which  these  delusions  are  connected  will  increase 
or  decline  in  proportion  to  their  adaptation  to  the 
religious  needs  of  mankind. 


Date  Due 

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BP955.B92 

Christian  science  and  other 


Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00010  5082 


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